Let's Talk About High-Cohumulone English Hops...

If you have a hop related question about International Bittering Units or alpha acid, post it here!
User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Let's Talk About High-Cohumulone English Hops...

Post by seymour » Mon Oct 06, 2014 3:24 am

Graham, my man! So great to hear from you. How have you been feeling lately? Been able to brew at all?

JKaranka

Re: Let's Talk About High-Cohumulone English Hops...

Post by JKaranka » Mon Oct 06, 2014 10:31 pm

I've had some beers with Pilgrim, Pioneer and Progress from Brecon Brewing and I never noticed anything atypical. I've gone through quite a bit of Chinook and I like it more than other American hops. It's very properly bold and more striking than Cascade, Willamette or Liberty, which I also like. More unexpected than Simcoe or Citra too. Just a hint of pine in there with the fruit.

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Let's Talk About High-Cohumulone English Hops...

Post by seymour » Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:47 pm

JKaranka wrote:I've had some beers with Pilgrim, Pioneer and Progress from Brecon Brewing and I never noticed anything atypical...
Here's the thing I think a lot of people keep overlooking:
(JKaranka, I'm not picking on you, I've seen lots of similar statements)

It's not just about the hop variety, it's about how you use it and how much of it.

It seems to me that even the English microbreweries doing single hop trials, seem to be brewing very tame base beers with traditionally small hop additions. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously, many nice nuanced ales have been produced that way. That poser Seymour Citra Gold comes to mind. :) But, seriously, it's unrealistic to expect those beers to taste anything like extreme New World APAs and IPAs.

Yes, most New World hops are intrinsically more pungent than most UK hops. But that's not why our APAs and IPAs are so insanely hoppy. It's because brewers of these beers use a relatively neutral grainbill then a shit-ton of hops throughout the boil, a shit-ton more at flame-out, usually a shit-ton more in whirlpool and again a shit-ton of dry hops (sometimes even multiple dry hop stages!)

If the beers in which people have tasted the new UK varieties (Pilgrim, Pioneer, Phoenix, Flyer, Admiral, First Gold, all those new women's named ones, etc) were brewed in the same way as a traditional bitter, OF COURSE you won't notice much atypical. The inverse is also true: we Americans can make a fairly tame and true-to-style English Bitter, English Golden Ale, Scotch Ale, etc, using small quantities of our Cascade, Centennial, Cluster, etc. I know, I know, not 100% authentic, but more similar than you might think.

My point is that if you want to make a crazy hoppy beer, go on and use a crazy quantity of your UK hops instead of our hops. Only then will you all see what I mean.

For instance, I recently tasted Schlafly Hop Trial: Admiral. It was basically a Youngs Bitter clone brewed to 6.5% ABV, Admiral kettle and aroma additions to 45 IBU (already much higher than most English bitters, right?) THEN dry-hopped with 2 pounds/barrel of Admiral. I'm pretty sure none of the commercial hop trials you guys have tasted were dosed like that, but there's nothing to stop you from homebrewing like that.

JKaranka

Re: Let's Talk About High-Cohumulone English Hops...

Post by JKaranka » Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:27 am

Seymour, I do agree that it's more to do with the hopping tradition than the hops themselves. I do use plenty of British hops as of late, such a couple of oz of Challenger in the boil, another couple of EKG for bittering and a few of EKG and Liberty for dry hopping... and the 2oz of American Liberty are the ones that come across the most in the aroma by far. I like First Gold, Brewer's Gold, Bramling Cross and Northdown, but maybe I should give more of a go at Admiral and Pilgrim. I've just not had any noticeably interesting beers with them (from brewers). I do think that you can get very interesting ridiculously hopped beers with Fuggles or Bramling Cross, though. You could attempt a skunk overload with a Target and Fuggles hopburst followed by a 10oz Fuggles dry hop.

PS: some breweries here use American C hops in such a restrained fashion that you would never imagine there is anything interesting about them. Some others are good at striking a balance (that I grow to appreciate more and more over time) while others just copycat American breweries. Still, 75% of British breweries restrain their hopping way too much. They should visit the 1860s to learn how to hop a beer.

Post Reply