Back to the Fuggles

[iowalad]

Just finished up a slighly modified verion of GW's Donnington SBA - upped the late fuggle hops significantly in anticipation of running the beer thru the engine.

I forgot how much I like fuggles. A nice earthy aroma compared to the perfumey EKG that I have been addicted to of late.

Anyway hop price increases have struck here. three weeks ago my local homebrew store had UK Fuggles at $1.20 an ounce now they are $1.75. He did say that his distributor was starting to sell the 2007 crop. FWIW he also thought homebrewers were over reacting in stocking up on hops of late. His hops (particularly those from the UK) were well picked over. Brambling Cross and Target seem to be the least loved. I may have to give BC a go sometime here.

[Madbrewer]

He did say that his distributor was starting to sell the 2007 crop. FWIW he also thought homebrewers were over reacting in stocking up on hops of late. His hops (particularly those from the UK) were well picked over. Brambling Cross and Target seem to be the least loved. I may have to give BC a go sometime here.

Am glad it sounds like we can ride out the (hop) storm. I pay £3.00 for 100g of fuggles here. That's around $1.68 an ounce? 2 cents to ship to the U.S. doesn't sound too bad. Also as It sounds like the UK is about to undergo a revolutionary new health tax on alchohol. (Like we dont get that here annually at all normally,) apparently putting up the taxes slightly decreases the actual amount of drinkers (yeah right!). I wonder if that will have a positive effect on the hobby?

[johnmac]

I wonder if that will have a positive effect on the hobby?

Would you put it past New Labour to try to control binge drinking by banning homebrew?

[Madbrewer]

Well looking at their ideas to date I wouldn't put anything past them. Howver they seem to prefer to use tax and justify it on the fact it's dangerous or whatever. This presumably allows them to mis-manage the increased funds rather than controlling spend effectively. Road tax for example being a costly measure that they could have just put that tax on fuel (originally) and no one could avoid it instead of OCR reading cameras and goodness knows what else they dream up! I suspect as soon as one of us home brewer hits the press as being anything other than a thoroughly decent chap - the hobby will get picked on like anything else though?

[monk]

My local HB shop upped the prices on hops as well. It used to be 1.47/oz but they told me they have to pump it up to about $2/oz now. Still not too bad. It'd suck a lot more if I was trying to make money off brewing, like the small brewpubs are. That reminds me, I should be patronizing them a bit more to help them out

On the Fuggles tip...I love Fugs! For a while I had a ton of Fuggles and put them in all kinds of stuff. I still make my London Pride "Clone" with fuggles. I add the quotes because there have been so many mods to the recipe that it doesn't look like a legit LP anymore...but it tastes great. I like to add a good dose of Fugs with about 15 minutes of boil left. It gives a nice hop flavor that seems to blend well with the malt early on. I don't feel like I have to wait for the flavors to meld for a month.

monk

[iowalad]

hop aroma and flavor and the right carbonation seem to be the two areas I struggle with. My hop results seem to vary a lot and I never seem to be happy with my carbonation.

My keg system should help me tune in the carbonation and I just need to brew more to sort out my hops!

[Rookie]

One LHBS has charged over $2 an ounce for imported hops for a long time (can't imagine what they are charging now). Needless to say I don't buy hops from hem, or anything else. His imported grains are rather high also.
Some of the shops that had free shippng charged less per pound and it is usually easy to get up to the amount required to qualify for free shipping.

[iowalad]

Twelve days later I kegged this beauty and have been very pleased. Tastes great out of the fermenter.