Care to go down under? Yeah, us too!

We were trying to come up with something unusual for our 500th brew. We've been tinkering with Belgian style ales for a couple of years, yet we hadn' t brewed a Belgian IPA. Truth be told, we came up with the name of the beer first. Galaxy 500 is a new variety of hops and also an American automobile from the 60s.

After we'd already come up with the name and graphics, we couldn't find any Galaxy hops! We freaked as we scoured the globe to find it. A fellow crafter on the west coast came through for us with a couple of boxes he could spare. Austrralian hops and Belgian yeast make this one unique, and a rare opportunity to experience Galaxy hops.

Galaxy hops were bred in 1994, crossing an Autralian female and a male Perle hop, grown in a hop garden called Rostrevor in notheastern Victoria. It's now grown in both Victoria and Tasmania.

Its aroma is a pleasant citrusy passionfruit. Alpha acids range from 13-14.8%. We think it's well suited to IPAs. We hope you agree! Cheers to everyone who likes to go down under!