Ok, I’ve read 50 different descriptions of the bravo hop. Can someone w/actual brewing experience offer a flavor and aroma description? It seems like there are quite a few new-ish hops that I haven’t had the chance to use yet. Once I get back into the swing of things, I’d like to try out
ivanhoe
rakau
pilgrim
galaxy
apollo
opal
and a few others that I’m surely forgetting
Anyone have anything to say about those varieties? Thanks for the help. cheers, j
I used Bravo pellets last year on an AAA. Aromawise, I found it to be faintly floral or herbal–but not in a “hmm–I wanna smell more of that”-kind-of way. Similar to sniffing geraniums or marigolds; they’re better to look at. Flavorwise, I found it was earthy, bitter, raspy almost ?metallic? bite (but I had no copper or iron issues that I could identify). Some other brewers who tasted it weren’t too keen on it either. I’ll probably not use it again unless someone makes a beer that showcases it bettter for me to try.
I did a barley wine with all ivanhoe back in January.
It’s very fruity, from gravity and taste tests during fermentation there was a HUGE pineapple character (both my wife and I thought it was like drinking pineapple juice and rum) that settled down into a more subdued tropical/pineapple/passionfruit character. It’s a good multipurpose hop as the AA% is around 8-9 but it has lots or aroma and flavour as well. I am thinking of trying a cali common with it at some point. It is a cluster type hop so it’s related to northern brewer.
Galaxy sounds great, I can’t wait to try a rakau vs galaxy experiment.
The ivanhoe sounds interesting too, though I’m not a big fan of pineapple, I do like cluster and was thinking of trying it in either a cali or a session stout.
J,
just got home and looked over my brew notes from that 10 gallon batch of AAA which used both Citra and Bravo hops.
OG was 1.050, FG was 1.013. ABV = 4.8. Calculated IBU’s was around 28.8.
Hop schedule was
FWH (or 60 min): 0.5 oz Citra
30 min: 0.25 oz each of Citra and Bravo
20 min: 0.25 oz each of Citra and Bravo
10 min: 0.50 oz of Bravo
5 min: 0.50 oz of Bravo
I was really looking forward to drinking this beer. But, it was disappointingly bitter.
I think the reason it was such a sucky beer was the new water build that I did using the BeerSmith water profile builder (v1.4).
The ions may have been right, but I was way off on the pH during the mash (4.1), though I got it back up (to 5.1) with the second batch sparge.
Given that, it may not be fair at all to make any opinion about the Bravo hop profile based on my experience.
I highly recommend Martin B’s Bru’n water calculator. Since I began using it this year, I’ve hit my mash and sparge pH’s within 0.1 or 0.2 points every time (i.e., if any deviation occurs, my result is usually 0.1 or 0.2 pH points higher than the calculated 5.2).
I bottled an APA the other day that was 100% Calypso. They had a huge pear aroma coming out of the bag but it was muted in the flat beer. It will be interesting to see what comes through when it’s carbed. It tasted slightly floral and I think they’d blend well with Styrian Golding or EKG.
Seems that apple and pear are popular hop aromas at the moment. Do report back once you have it carb’d. The reason I was interested in the bravo hops was this wonderful review, “Aromas of light fruit (apple and pear) with a flowery note dominate. Very light hint of tangerine and apricot, and slight earthy background.” So I did a google search and found that about 50% of the reviews were negative and really negative at that. Seems that some of these hop descriptions are slightly embelished, on the other hand I take the opinions of some homebrewers with a grain of salt. where did you find your calypso? cheers, j
I hate to be a ‘downer’ here, but in the new Hopunion “Hop Variety Handbook” it says “will only be grown through the 2010 season”. One should stock up now if they want some more to brew with.
late to the game, but I did an AAA with all Bravo back when they came out ('08) - I think that richardt’s perspective is right on - I didn’t care for it as much as some of my brew club friends did, some of which really liked - so much that one asked me recently when I was going to make that again.