Haven’t seen much commentary on Denali hops. Parented by Nugget and Zeus, high oil content; looks pretty interesting. Anyone used them and care to share their impression?
I tried a commercial beer brewed with them at HBC. I also got to stick my head in a small bucket of pellets. My recollection is they have pretty intense dank/citrus aroma and kind of a sharp bitterness.
I was planning to buy some but forgot all about them until your post.
They’ve been on my list to try. Haven’t gotten there yet.
I’ve used Denali once, as a whirlpool addition and then as a dry hop. It was the only hop I used for the dry hop. The beer tasted amazing before the dry hopping. But the dry hopping ruined it. It infused the beer with a harsh bitterness and lots of unpleasant grassy flavors. Had to dump it
Just did an all-Denali IPA. Really nice tangerine and lemon flavor, but more subtle than I would have expected for the oil content, even at 2.5 lb/bbl. I think it could go well in the lead role but backed up by something more assertive like Centennial or Amarillo.
Edit: Looked at the recipe and it was actually 3 lb/bbl, evenly split between 20 min, 10 min, whirlpool, and dry hop.
Good to know. Thanks!
Denali-Citra-Vic Secret makes a killer NE-style IPA. I haven’t brewed a single-hop with it yet, but Sean’s description sounds similar to my impression. When I added them to my kettle, I picked up something that reminded me of opening a bag of clementines. There was definitely some orange in the beer, which I wouldn’t expect from either Citra or Vic Secret on their own.
Yum! That combo sounds delicious! I have yet to work with either Denali or Vic Secret. Gotta find some now.
A couple months back our club did a bunch of IPAs featuring different hop varieties. The recipes were all the same, except for the featured hop. I drew Apollo, which I wouldn’t feature as a standalone hop, but it was a good experiment. One of the brewers drew Denali. It was a great variety. I got straight up fruity pebbles on the nose (not everyone did though). Taste was citrus and tropical fruit. I’d definitely brew with this hop and wouldn’t shy away from using it solo.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Good info!
Tom Schmidlin at Postdoc has a Denali hopped beer coming out soon. I’ll let you know what I think.
Did the same hop combo as Eric B. in a NEIPA and mine turned out great as well. Tons of stone fruit, mostly tangerine. Cheers