Northern Monk is introducing a new product category this month, a zero-alcohol, zero-calorie sparkling water flavoured with hops.
Northern Monk’s Hop Water — stylised H2OP — uses the brewing technique of dry hopping to extract flavour from Citra hops, one of the most prolific hops in craft beer, coveted for its juicy citrus, grapefruit, lime, and tropical fruit
character.
Citra is a key ingredient in beers such as Faith, Northern Monk’s Great Taste Award-winning flagship hazy pale ale, as
well as Heathen and Order of the Faith, which, along with Faith, swept the podium at 2021’s International Beer
Challenge, winning gold, silver, and bronze in the New England IPA category.
As part of Northern Monk’s founding principle of creating the best beer experiences in the world, the team started
thinking of how to elevate the experience of Hop City, their annual beer festival and celebration of hop-forward beers.
Held at Northern Monk’s Sydenham Road, Leeds, brewery site, Hop City hosts more than 40 of the world’s most prestigious breweries, pouring over 200 beers for 3,000 attendees between Thursday, 2nd June, and Saturday, June 4th. This year’s festival expands the offering to include a plethora of alternatives from Æblerov, Smooj, Below Stairs, Maude Coffee, Noita Winery, and Schramm’s Mead.
Packed with hop aromas
With all beers included in the ticket price for each session, water is essential for responsible drinking and palate-
cleansing, but with thousands of Europe’s biggest hop connoisseurs attending the festival, serving up plain water felt like a missed opportunity, and so H2OP was born. It’s a refreshing sparkling drink packed with hop aromas and flavours, with no alcohol, calories, sugar, or carbohydrates.
Northern Monk founder, Russell Bisset, said: “The world of beer has evolved rapidly over the last ten years. We feel incredibly lucky to have been part of such a fast-paced, dynamic industry. With so many of our community becoming more conscious of their nutrition, diet, and alcohol intake, we’re incredibly excited to enter this new category.
“We’ve combined our love of (arguably) the best water in the world, fresh from Yorkshire, with our love for hops to create this sparkling hop water. No alcohol, no sugar, no calories, with the many health benefits and world of flavours hops bring.”
• H2OP will be available in 440ml cans, at £1, from Northern Monk’s webshop on Monday, 11th April. It will bein Northern Monk Refectories, in Leeds and Manchester, from Friday, 15th April.
