I’ve been working on a porter recipe and was wondering what hops people are using for theirs.
Fuggles/EKG
Anything English well work well.
I usually consider a Porter an English style and my go-to hop for most of my English styles is Willamette
I generally use EKG but I read an article recently with Mitch Steele from Stone and he mentioned Ahtanum as a hop that has the citrus notes like an american but also had the earth quality of some english hops. I have been meaning to use it in a beer like a porter for a while now to see if I agreed. If you feel like experimenting that would be fun! Otherwise stick with the EKG’s they work great.
+1. I use both in my Porter.
I’m partial to Willamette, though lately I’ve been using Mt Hood since I always have those around.
Not in this house! I use a combo of German and American hops…usually Tettnang and Cascade.
Likewise here…I use English, American, and Czech varieties as a rule (mostly American…I almost always have Cluster and Bullion in the freezer).
The bigger rule is I use whatever I have on hand . It rarely makes a noticeable difference, at least not in the porters, anyway.
Challenger for bittering, Fuggles for aroma, if going down the English route…
That’s one of my favorite combos.
I also brew an all Fuggles porter that is pretty good.
I used Delta in a Robust recently and really enjoyed it.
I am not familiar with Delta - what’s the profile?
I’ve been pretty happy with target lately.
Chinook! ;D Man, it’s drinking good.
It’s a Fuggles/Cascade cross. As flavor/aroma additions, I don’t find them to be reminiscent of either, really. Some lemony citrus, but also some spicy, herbal notes. What I have are 6.5% AA. Harpoon recently did a single-varietal ESB with Delta.
Totally depends on how much hop character you want in the Porter - eathier, English-type hops are traditional, but with a style who’s bitterness is low and lots of roast malt character, I don’t think hop choice makes a huge impact (again depending on your tastes\goals).
I’ve made Porters (including my currently fermenting one) with Columbus without much hop character coming through at ~25 IBUs - at least nothing that would make some one say: 'Hey, there’s high alpha American hops in this!"
My porter relies on a combo of CTZ to bitter and Willamette at 15 min, but I imagine Nugget, Glacier, Mt. Hood, Goldings, or other “noble/English type” hop would work well late in the boil. I actually like to have some perceptible hop quality in my porter, but I am not into getting a citrusy/fruity C-hop flavor competing with the roasty cocoa thing I get from the malt bill… so I would really keep it to neutral hops for the late additions… for my palate, anyway.
thanks for all the feedback. I’ve been using chinook and wiilamette. and a touch of cascade in the last batch. it’s a wheat based porter(forgot to mention that. sorry), so not very traditional. I’m just really experimenting to find something i like a whole lot with this recipe. i tried one at my learn to brew class about a year and a half ago and really liked it. i was given a recipe for the wheat porter i tasted and liked it so i thought id play around. i think the next batch i might try a little ahtanum.
probably should have given these details first thing. not sure why i didn’t.
anyway, any new thoughts on the matter?
also, still just lme/partial mash full volume brewing as my current time and space allow.
So I assume your wheat comes in the form of DME? That’s how I would do it if I were doing partial mash for a porter. Actually, IMO, a Porter is probably the best style for extract brewing, as chocolate malt, crystal malt, and black malt (or my preference, Carafa Special II) all steep well, and the residual sugars left over from the extract isn’t so offensive in a porter. If I were doing a partial mash, though, I wouldn’t bother with this style, as there are no real “must mash” malts that I put in my porters (though I know many people do put Munich malt in their porters, I do not). And wheat malt can be a PITA to mash with in a tiny system, IMO.