Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Kohatu Hops - Tasting Notes

Last, but not least, we have Kohatu. I got these pellets from Farmhouse Brewing Supply as well. These were 2014 crop and were listed at 8.1% AA. The aroma of the hop pellets really wowed me. There was some complex tropical fruit, citrus and pine resin.

The aroma of the beer had some very nice complexity. I picked up citrus (grapefruit, primarily), stone fruit, some pine in the background, and some vinous notes.

The flavor was resinous with lingering pine. I also got some lemon/grapefruit citrus notes, but the flavor didn't seem as potent as the aroma. There was also some stone fruit & tropical notes. The finish saw the pine resin character linger a bit. Bittering was moderate-to-full and clinging.

My impression of Kohatu is somewhere along the lines of Nelson-meets-Mosaic. The only thing is that the hop character didn't seem as potent in this beer as I would expect from Nelson or Mosaic. As I mentioned in a previous post, I did change my recipe a bit for this batch. The increased maltiness this time around may be contributing to the somewhat muted hop flavor here.

I do think that Kohatu has a lot of potential. I think this one is perfectly suited to IPA's.The bittering and flavor are in the ballpark of something like Chinook, while the aroma is much more fruity and complex. I think dry hops are where this hop is going to shine the brightest.

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