Hop hash & hop kief also: Hop hash, Hop kief, Lupulin hash
Pure lupulin scraped off pellet-mill screens. Limited supply, cult following.
What it is, in plain English
Hop hash is the pure lupulin powder that collects on screens during pellet milling — a small byproduct of normal pellet production that, if not collected, just gets composted. When farms scrape and package it, the result is the most aroma-dense form of hops you can buy. Compressed hash bricks and loose 'kief' powder both circulate. Beers using it (notably SweetWater's hop-hash-driven seasonals) tend to have an almost-resinous intensity that's hard to replicate any other way. Output is small — kief and hash are not produced on demand, they accumulate as a byproduct and are released when there's enough.
The technical version
When hops are processed into T90 pellets, the cones are first ground into a fine powder, then pressed through a die. During the grinding step, lupulin glands rupture and release oil-rich resin that coats screens, surfaces, and tooling. That accumulated material — pure lupulin, no plant matter — is hop hash. Some producers compress it into hash-style bricks; others collect the loose powder as 'hop kief' (named after the cannabis-trichome equivalent). Freestyle Hops in New Zealand has commercialized hop kief liquids that combine NZ varieties with fruit infusions.
How brewers use it
Extremely concentrated — small additions deliver large flavor impact. Best used in whirlpool or dry-hop. A few ounces in a 5-gallon batch can transform a beer; commercial-scale dosing is similarly modest. Difficult to mix into wort — the resin can clump. Often added at the end of the boil with the heat off, then whirlpooled, or added during dry hop with a recirc pump. Storage matters more than for pellets — keep cold and in nitrogen-flushed packaging or it oxidizes fast.
Who uses it
SweetWater Brewing has been the loudest hash advocate (notable seasonals built around Amarillo and Citra hash). Smaller brewers occasionally get allocations from Yakima Valley farms. Freestyle Hops' kief liquids (Kohia Nelson with passionfruit; Maui Nelson with pineapple) have been used by Working Title (Australia) and others.