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.

Caliente Hops - Tasting Notes

A couple of years back I was able to pick up some Caliente hops from Yakima Valley Hops. At the time they were just available in a limited amount as whole leaf hops. Last year YVH had a bigger supply, with both leaf and pellet hops available. I haven't seen anyone else carrying them yet.

I'll be honest - the raw hops themselves really didn't leave me with high hopes based on the smell of them. All I got off the cones was a really generic "hoppy" (i.e., grassy and nondescript), which seemed pretty mild. In the hop's defense, I did get these shipped to me in the middle of a 90+ degree July heatwave, and I'm assuming they were the better part of a year old at that point as well. Still, I couldn't pick up anything specific in the aroma of the hops themselves.

Well, I was very pleasantly surprised with the finished beer given what I picked up off the raw hops. The aroma has a little lemon zest and a hint of pine, but it is dominated by a very distinct stone fruit aroma. I got a really nice juicy aroma of fresh peach/nectarine/plum from this hop.

On the palate, the fruitiness is much more subdued. There are notes of peach and lemon, but it's fleeting. It almost reminded me of a flavored seltzer in that respect. As the beer warmed, I started getting a lot more earthy/woody notes coming out. On the flavor side, it seems like Fuggles, but with a bit of fruitiness.

I think this one will pair nicely with Motueka. I could definitely see it as an interesting addition in an English IPA. The fresh plum note makes me want to find a way to combine this with Special B and D-180 in some way as well. Maybe some kind of bastardized dubbel/amber hybrid? This hop was definitely a pleasant surprise from these batches, and I'm definitely looking forward to using it again soon.

Motueka Hops - Tasting Notes

The next batch I'm tasting was brewed with Motueka. These are another fairly new hop from New Zealand. The hops I used for this beer were 7.2% AA and came from from Rebel Brewer. My aroma notes on the pellets themselves was herbal/citrus (noble-like with a citrus kick). I had a note that I really liked the aroma of these pellets and had them earmarked for use in a Pils based on what I was smelling.

The finished beer had aromas of lime and lemongrass. It's citrus, but not explosive, C-hop type citrus. It's definitely softer and more complex, almost like a sweet citrus.

On the palate I still pick up the lime, but it's relatively soft with some faint herbal/floral flavors. Again, it's citrus, but not the typical C-hop grapefruit/passionfruit bitter/juicy citrus. Because it's a bit less assertive of a hop, I got more of the malt flavor coming through.

I don't think Motueka could take the lead role in a hop-bomb, but it would definitely be nice as a supporting note. It's mellow enough where you could use it in place of noble hops in a lager. The flavor is distinct enough where it would probably throw a Pils out of style, but it would definitely make for a refreshing summertime brew. I'm thinking it could also be nice in a hoppy saison, an American wheat or maybe even a wit.

Summit Hops - Tasting Notes

The next set of tasting notes is for a batch that was brewed with Summit. These were 15.5% AA and came from Austin Homebrew Supply. The pellets themselves smelled dank, with herbal/grassy notes and a distinct onion aroma. There was a rather indistinct citrus note behind the dankness, but onion and dank were the main aroma from the hops themselves.

I was surprised by the aroma of the finished beer. There was a huge blast of tangerines with some grapefruit. There is a bit of dankness/spiciness in the nose, but it is way in the back behind the citrus.

The flavor profile is a different story altogether. It's like eating onion rings. It's not overpowering, and I like the taste in general, just not in a beer (especially not in a session beer). I think it's the malty Munich flavor that combines with a savory/spicy onion-garlic note that really reminds me of breaded onion rings. I think I picked up something that reminds me of aged parmesan or asiago as well.

So my thoughts on Summit are, maybe it's only suitable in small quantities, or maybe it's better suited for dry-hopping only. Maybe it would be OK paired with another hop. I just know that while I like the flavors that I'm getting in this beer, I just don't like them in beer.

On the other hand, this beer will likely be awesome to cook with.

Hop Shot Hop Extract - Tasting Notes

One of my single-hopped brews was made using Hop Shot hop extract. This is a CO2-extracted hop extract. It is essentially all the "good stuff" from hops with all the vegetative material removed. It still needs to be boiled to isomerize the alpha acids, and it also contains all the hop oils so it can (theoretically) be used for flavor and aroma as well.

I had no real way to gauge the oil content of the extract, so I simply used 40 IBU's worth as FWH, the rest of the syringe at flameout, and then a full syringe as dry hops. The smell of the extract reminded me a lot of "B-Hoppy" hop candies. Much like any other extract, the aroma is clearly hops, but it's not quite the same as smelling the real thing.

The aroma of the beer has citrus, and some dank earthy/oniony notes. The flavor is dank, herbal and resinous. There is some definite onion going on, but nothing like Summit. The onion is not the dominant note, and it doesn't have that real "savory" character that I got from the Summit. In general, I thought the flavor was a little flat for my tastes. I'll be saving this for bittering purposes only from now on.

Lambic Wort - An Alternative to Turbid Mashing (?)

I've recently started to dabble in brewing sour beers. Right now I have one house culture going that I built up from dregs from some of my favorite sours (Gueuze Girardin, Gueuze Fond Tradition, and Lost Abbey Red Poppy). I'm just starting to fill up my pipeline of sours now, so it will still be a little while before I have some results to share.

I've heard a few podcasts recently discuss the production of lambic wort. Traditionally, a turbid mash process is followed to produce a starchy, dextrinous wort for the lambic. This ensures that the Brettanomyces will have food to work its magic over the long haul after the other microbes have consumed the simple sugars in the wort. The turbid mash is a rather lengthy process, but given the high enzymatic content of modern malt there are few other options to produce the type of wort you're looking for.

But, to coin a phrase, "Ain't nobody got time for that!". I've heard of other ways around this. Some brewers add flour. Others use a short, high-temperature mash. I haven't tried either, and while they probably get you in the ballpark, I have another approach that I think will get me the results that I'm looking for..

Lambic wort is typically just pilsner malt and unmalted wheat. To get the dextrins, I'm going to do a short, high mash (162F) on the pilsner malt portion of the grain bill. To get the starch, I'm going to steep some flaked wheat separately. After the wheat steeps, I'm going to raise the temp on that fraction of the wort to the 190F ballpark. Once the pilsner mash is done, that will be run off into the wheat wort. This will bring the mash above mashout temps a lot quicker than if I were going to heat the whole thing directly. Hopefully this will lock in the dextrin and starch content by rapidly denaturing any enzymes left in the mash. This will be followed by a short boil just to get about 8-10 IBU's from my hop addition.

If everything goes as planned, then I'll have a batch of lambic wort ready to go in almost as little time as it would take for a batch of extract brew. I'll keep you posted on my results.

Rakau Hops - Tasting Notes

Next up are some tasting notes for a single-hopped beer brewed with Rakau. This is one of the fairly new hop varieties coming out of New Zealand. These were 11.4% AA pellets that I got from Rebel Brewer. My aroma notes for the pellets read "grassy, tropical fruit, spice".

The nose of the finished beer has an indistinct "sweet fruit" aroma along the lines of papaya and sweet apples. There are also some perfumy/floral notes.

The palate finds herbal flavors, along with more generic "fruit" flavor. I also pick out some floral and spicy notes along with some resin. Overall, the hop flavor seems kind of muddled and indistinct, although I did get some nice cinnamon flavor as the beer warmed up a bit. The Rakau's not bad, but not something I'd go out of my way for again.

One other thing I noticed is that the Rakau beer had a pretty sharp bitterness. My bittering additions on these beers are a pseudo-FWH, so it's hard to say for sure what kind of results this would give as a 60+ minute addition in an IPA. I have this earmarked to try out in place of Chinook/Columbus/Nugget as a bittering addition in the near future. I'll be sure to report back once I try it out.