Why is fresh hop beer so addictively delicious?

Three things, in order of how much they contribute:

1. The aroma you're getting is unmatched. Hops drive their flavour through volatile aromatic oils — myrcene, humulene, caryophyllene, and so on. These dissipate fast: a hop that's been picked, dried, pelletised, and stored for six months has lost a huge chunk of the most expressive top notes by the time it hits your beer. Fresh (or "wet") hops go from the bine into the kettle within 24 hours, so you're getting the full aromatic spectrum that was actually in the plant. It's roughly the difference between sniffing a fresh basil leaf and a jar of dried basil.

2. The aromatic profile itself is different from anything you can get otherwise. Fresh hops have a green, sappy, almost vegetal character — chlorophyll, juice, garden cuttings. That character disappears entirely when the hop is dried, so you literally cannot taste it in any other beer. Your brain registers it as novel because it is.

3. You're drinking it in the right context. Fresh hop is a tiny window — a few weeks right after harvest. Limited availability, seasonal cues, "drink it now or wait a year." That's not fake deliciousness, but the scarcity definitely intensifies how you experience the actual liquid.

There's also a structural thing brewers will mention: because wet hops are roughly 80% water, you need five to ten times the weight to hit the same alpha-acid contribution as dry. That means a fresh-hop beer has an enormous amount of plant material in the kettle, which often leaves it with a slightly different mouthfeel — softer, sometimes a touch chewier. Some of what you're tasting is that.

A few signals, mostly negative ones — i.e. red flags rather than green ones:

• Brewery in driving distance of a hop farm. Wet hops oxidise within hours. The further they travel from field to kettle, the worse it gets. If the brewery is in or near a hop-growing region (Yakima, Willamette, Kent, Nelson, parts of NZ) and they've been able to brew within a day of picking, you're set up well. A "fresh hop" beer made in the wrong hemisphere from shipped frozen hops is, by definition, the gimmick version.
• A named variety and farm on the label, not just "fresh hop ale." Good brewers brag about the provenance. If it just says "wet hop IPA" with no further detail, they probably brewed it with whatever they could get.
• Drink it as young as humanly possible. This is the one most people get wrong. Fresh hop beers fall off a cliff within a few weeks of packaging — the bright green note flattens out and you're left with something muddy. If the can is two months old, it's gone, no matter how good the brewer was.
• Trust the nose more than the bitterness. A great fresh hop should hit you with something herbaceous and alive on the first sniff. If the only thing you're getting is "big bitter IPA," they're hiding aged hops behind alpha acid.

The honest answer to "is it worth the hype" is: yes, but only if you drink it within a few weeks of brewing, ideally close to the growing region. Outside of that window the magic is largely gone and you're paying a premium for what is functionally a regular IPA with a good story.