A friend had me come to his house today to try a flavour that he found disagreeable in his most recent wet hopped IPA. He couldn’t identify what the off flavour was, but when I tasted it, I tasted a bad fishy taste, kind of like seaweed. When I mentioned it, he agreed. The hops were his home grown Cascades. Anyone else have fishy hops?
I should clarify, we then opened a vacuum sealed bag of said hops, and they had a soft, fishy aroma.
Were the hops dried before vacuum sealed?
I assume so. They felt like dried hops. I’ll ask my buddy.
What kind of fertilizer did he use? Fish based?
I did an experiment over the summer trying to impart some different flavors to some hops that grow in my back yard. I used a bunch of black cherry juice in place of some of the water when I irrigated some sterlings and some key lime juice and some grapefruit juice on some goldings.
I get a hint of cherry aroma in the sterlings and some strong grapefruit aroma in the goldings.
Interesting. That’s pretty crazy. Just from one round of watering?
The only time I’ve ever picked up a fishy note in a beer was at a small nanobrewery in their saison that was dry-hopped with Sorachi Ace. Their other beers were good, but I have no way to point the finger at any specific part of their process or ingredients to say “that’s why it tasted fishy”. All I know is that it was a dumper batch that should never have been served to the public.
Seaweed sounds like the hops might not have completely dried and have some mold or mildew growth.
+1; Drying hops takes much longer than many would suspect. One of the main reasons I gave up growing.
A wet hopped beer with dried hops?
Confirmation bias?
Perhaps, but consider the affect of using juice on soil pH and also the sugar. A little could actually be a benefit but I cannot imagine the plant surviving being fed juice only. But it’s like all good ideas, equal parts of genius and insanity. ;D
The local hop grower I’ve bought from uses fish emulsion, I’ve never gotten any fishy taste though. He only uses it early in the spring. Is there some other kind of plant or tree nearby that could be influencing it? I know ginko can smell fairly terrible.
Same here. Fish emulsion was the only fertilizer I used for the 14 years I grew hops and it never caused a fishy taste or aroma.
If I had to guess, which I will until someone finds evidence, I’d say little to none.
frozen hops that are heavy on the earthy aromas sometimes smell fishy to me until they warm up.
The amount used was several gallons spread over several weeks.
It might be wishful thinking, but my wife and daughter confirmed a strong grapefruit note in the goldings.
Definitely not just juice.
Oh no… I used horse crap on my hops.
:o 
If it was Budweiser Clydesdale horse crap you’ll be fine.