Meridian Hops - Tasting Notes

A single-hopped Meridian Pale Ale is up for tasting next. These were 6.7% AA pellets that I got from Hop Heaven from the 2012 harvest. Pellets had aromas of apricot/peach with some dankness.

The nose of the finished beer is predominately nectarines and apricots. There is also some pine and some dankness.

The palate finds more peach/nectarine, and maybe a hint of tangerine. This leads into a resinous bite with some pine and dankness. Bitterness is moderate but it hangs around for a bit from the resin.

I'm really liking Meridian. It is predominately stone fruit in flavor, but on the sweeter side (I think of it as nectarines or even apricots while Caliente is more like a red plum). It has a nice bite to it that balances the sweet stone fruit. I think I'd like this best in hoppier styles since it does have a bit of a bite, but I think you can use it as a dry hop in a lot of other styles if you want to get creative (dry-hopped Berliner Weisse, maybe?).

This is a hop that you don't want to use in an underattenuated beer. The sweet nectarine note can be a bit much if you have too much sweetness left in the finished beer.