What does Amarillo go well with? I’ve got about 10oz sitting in the freezer doing not much of anything. I’m thinking of it a basic American IPA. I’m a big fan of all-Centennial IPAs, what about mixing Amarillo 50/50 with Cents? Or are they best used at a certain point in the boil, like flavor or aroma?
Other hops I have on hand (in case anyone sees anything that pairs nicely with Amarillo) are Columbus, Cascade, Magnum, Mittlefruh, Tettnang, and Willamette. (And Saaz but that’s going in my Bo Pils this week)
Amarillo is my favorite flavor hop in IPA’s and APA’s. It’s also has a great citrus aroma. I like it with Simcoe (enjoying one while I type). I’ve used it with Columbus, Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook with good results as well. It will go nice with Centennial, but to get a nice sense of the flavor maybe try bittering with Magnum and use the Amarillo for flavor and aroma additions.
I did a couple batches of pale ale that was 50 Maris/50 2 row and 50 centennial/50 Amarillo. great beer. I also just first wort hopped an ipa with 50 amarillo/50 centennial and used simcoe and warrior all late. it’s pretty tasty.
Can you even find Amarillo? I havent been able to find any online or in stores until I wandered into a LHBS in a neighboring state that somehow had 36 oz of pellets. I bought them all!
I recently brewed a beer primarily with Amarillo and Nelson Souvin, then dry-hopped with an equal amount of both. The Nelson dominates, but it’s a nice combination.
That’s kind of what I brewed last night - the West Coast Bitter from this forum. Hopped with Warrior, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook & Citra. It smelled real nice. (read in Cousin Eddie’s voice from Christmas Vacation)
Short answer - everything. There is a reason Amarillo is used so often by commercial brewers and sells out so quickly from the hop suppliers. I have yet to find a hop combination it doesn’t work with. It works great in hoppy styles, and it works well as an accent hop in lower levels for other styles as well.
My favorite combos so far:
Simcoe-Amarillo-Citra
Motueka-Amarillo-Caliente
Amarillo-Columbus-Ultra
Motueka-Amarillo-Mosaic-Citra
So to bump this thread up, as I want to brew an IPA next week, would anyone recommend trying something like this. I would do 11 gallons of around 1.060 beer.
(my Amarillo is 6.9% and my Magnums are 14.1%)
-bitter (60 min) with Magnum to around 20-25 IBUs (1.00-1.25 oz)
-15 IBU of Amarillo at 20 min (2.50 oz)
-10 IBU of Amarillo at 5 min (5.00 oz)
-dry hop with Amarillo (let’s say 1 oz per 5 gal corny)
that would use up my 10oz and give me a nice idea of what Amarillo is all about…
Heck no it won’t be bad! I love Amarillo. I tend to get a citrusy/orange flavor when I use a lot of Amarillo. I have found that a bunch of it can give you perceived sweetness. If that’s what you want, then it’s not a problem. I just did an IPA with a bunch of Simcoe and Amarillo at the end of the boil, flameout, and dry hop. It ended up being around 70 IBUs, but I personally thought it was too “sweet” for my taste. If I do this beer again I’ll bump up the bittering hops.
I haven’t done a strict side-by-side, but I find Amarillo to be more orange-citrus and Centennial to be more lemon/grapefruity-citrus. Amarillo seems to be a bit more floral and a bit less pine than Centennial to me. But all-in-all they’re pretty close, and a lot of the minute differences will vary between hop grower and crop year.
I was just able to taste my single-hopped Amarillo IPA last weekend. I think it tastes very grape-fruity. That being said, it is very good. I feel that it lack any backbone though. I would go with at least 2 oz of magnum since it’s an 11 gallon batch. From what I understand, you have 10 ounces of Amarillo? To try and stay in check with what you are doing, I would go 2 oz at 15 minutes, bump the 5 to flameout and change it to 4 oz, and dry hop 2 oz in each corny. If anything, consider upping your bittering hops. But whatever you do, it will be very good! Good luck and let us know how it turns out!