I’ve recently decided to dedicate most of my brewing to German styles. I don’t have much experience with German hops and they all seem to be subs and very similar based off of descriptions. Most of my brewing in the last 5 years has been English and American styles.
The Germans hops I have are
Mt hood
German tettanger
German perle
Are there any others worth getting? I’m looking to brew helles, Vienna lager, Dunkel, pils, alt, gose, Weiss
Hallertau and hallertau blanc
One of the old Hallertau strains will be fine, but Hallertau Blanc is not what I would call a German style hop. Its more an American hop with strong flavor and aroma characters that are not typical of traditional hops.
Spalt is another hop that I would recommend and Saaz can also be found in German beers, but its considered more of a Czech hop.
How far off is mt hood from the Hallertau strains. Also tettanger comes up as a spalt sub. That’s where I get confused. I just want to hit all the bases without getting a bunch of hops that are very similar
Mt Hood is a good hop and is an offshoot of Hallertau. But next to Hallertau Mittelfrueh there is a noticeable difference IMO (with Mittelfrueh being the best of the Hallertau varietals IMO). I always keep some on hand. Love Saaz, too. Saaz and Mittelfrueh are worth keeping around if you like European lagers, and are quite different from each other.
Edit - Saaz is a Czech hop, but isn’t out of place in some German lagers IMO, especially blended with Hallertau. IIRC Saaz is used in some German pilsners.
This is slightly tangental, but I got some KILLER Sterling from Hop Heaven this year, with a strong Saaz like character. My last couple of lagers have really stood out because of that hop flavor.
I forgot I have a few ozs of sterling too from yvh. The aa’s were much higher then I expected like 13-14aa if I remember right
You need to know that many of the German hops are Hallertau Mittelfrüh derivatives breed for resistance to mildews that HM is susceptible to. Hallertau Tradition is one of those derivatives that has much of the HM character. Perle was breed from Northern Brewer, and can have a little minty character. I want to try Merkur as a bittering Hop. You can’t go wrong with German Magnum for bittering.
Of the newer hops, they are very nice, but not traditional. Saphir came out some time ago, and it is used in some American Pilsner, and a few German beers. Mandarins Bavaria, Hallertau Blanc, Huell Melon, and Polaris are all newish and are more flavorful and fruity with a German base - except of Polaris which reminds me of wintergreen.
The US derivatives are good substitutes, and can be fresher. A blend of Mt. Hood and Liberty can get really close to Hallertau Mittelfrüh.
One thing to be aware of is that terroir is real in hops. Spalt and Tettnang are genetically the same as Saaz, but the growing conditions change the flavors. Same for European varieties grown in Yakima. A local brewery made a Mt. Hood Pilsner that was very citrusy with an unexpected strong orange pith flavor in the finish. I need to ask the brewer where the hops came from, I think he is using mostly MI grown hops now.
Depends if we are including weissbier.
Brewing 99% German styles,
I stock Mittelfrüh, Perle, Magnum, Saphir and Tradition. With the poor acid% of the hops they always get a hopshot, or magnum boost as too much kettle matter is a big turn off of mine. I always try to limit it at or under an ounce of hops.
That’s good to hear, I just ordered a pound. I haven’t been too happy with the Saaz I have been getting recently.
I like exclusively Magnum for Bittering (generally FWH in my process), then Hallertauer, Hallertau Mittelfruh, Tettnanger, Spalt, Perle, and Saaz for flavor/late hop additions (typically at flameout, though occasionally at 10 minutes). The Hallertauer hops have been really low in alpha acids recently (I seem to recall a few years back when they were consistently around 4-4.5% alpha acid). Tettnanger seemed to head the other direction, oddly, as I had some 7%+ alpha last fall).
I have used Hallertauer as a lone hop, but it requires so much of it, that it can get pretty green in the wort. Likewise, I will bitter a Czech Pilsner with all Saaz every once in a while - but run into the same issue, so I prefer a bit of Magnum for bittering, instead.
A hop labeled Hallertau can be just about anything grown in the Hallertau region.
isn’t the first name the region and the second name the type?
so for instance, you brew pilsner with only 1oz of hops in the kettle? wow I did not expect that.
back to the OP, about half of what I brew is german styles these days, and I stock Tettnang, HMF, and Magnum regularly. lately, I’ve been playing around with others - Saphir was not enjoyable to me, and I just made my house Pils with some Spalt along with the usual HMF and Tett.
My last pils, (which is very out of the ordinary for me and had 45ibus) had 1.4oz of hops, with a 45 minute only addition.
I have them growing in my backyard and they make a great pilsner. Some batches I add some saaz as a dry hop and some I use only sterlings. Two weeks ago I brewed a three gallon batch of imperial pilsner with 7 ounces of sterlings that I plan to dry hop with saaz; maybe wakatu.
My homegrown Sterling (and many commercial ones I’ve gotten) can get kind of lemonadey as a late hop. This particular batch leans a lot more towards that classic Saaz character then the citrus when used late.
My experience with sterling is similar, a slight citrus vibe. Works great say in a saison or am wheats but not risking it in my german stuff. I had some REALLY good experience with santiam! Next pils will prolly be 50/50 santiam/saphir. I personally think the germans blend a few hops so that the character is very complex. I did a few one hop pils and so far my opinion is hallerau is too floral and saaz kinda metallic tasting alone. Kinda funny, just picked up 4 can of bitburger and the sauergut flavor oh so obvious now. Almost tasted like sour beer!
Sauergut is everrrrrrywhere! 
Bit is a single bittering addition with a single hop, just FYI.
Makes sense. Twas not much hop character at all. You sure only one type? I think some breweries are sneaky when they say “from Hallertauer region”. That could be anything grown there, Hattertauer NB, etc…