A very friendly Oregon-based forum member will come over to Belgium in a couple of weeks and he will bring me hops. Any lesser known hops and hop combinations you can recommend for me to try out in the American Ale/APA/IPA styles?
Mosaic, Equinox, Azacca, Triple Pearl, Cashmere, and Lemon Drop are all newer hop varieties that I like alot. Mosaic, Equinox and Cashmere are well suited to IPAs, where Azacca, Triple Pearl and Lemon Drop work best for APA IMO. As for blending, it depends on what you’re after - most all of these are fairly fruity hops, so could be blended with something like Simcoe,Chinook or Columbus for some piney balance, or blended with other fruity hops like Citra or El Dorado for a ‘fruit bomb’ hop character. I like Equinox the best of all these.
EDIT - And blending any of these with traditional citrusy hops like Cascade, Amarillo, or Centennial is always an option, too. You just have to decide what kind of hop character you’re after. And the rules aren’t rigid for the APA vs IPA recommendations - Azacca and Lemon Drop are used in a few commercial IPAs as well, for example.
Cluster and Bullion for old school hop flavor and aroma.
+1
My hidden gems are Meridian and Caliente. Meridian has a big nectarine/apricot thing going on that pairs really well with the usual citrus and tropical fruit IPA hops. Meridian + Citra + Nelson is the base of my house IPA recipe.
Caliente has a touch of lemon, but is mainly red plums to me, with a bit of earthiness on the palate. The plum note goes so well with many British and Belgian yeasts, as well as dark caramel malts and Candi Syrups. It’s the cornerstone of my APA/dubbel hybrid, and I sneak it into my ESB’s pretty frequently as well.
If mosaic is unreasonably priced or difficult to find then that would be number one on the list to find. All the others listed would be great options as well.
Galaxy is probably my favorite of all the newer hops.
I LOVE a mix of Cascade or Centennial with Galaxy as a flavor addition, and Chinook very late.
Goes well with Citra, too.
Yeah, I dropped the ball - Galaxy is right up there for me ,too. And I like Nelson too, but not quite as well as Galaxy.
I was thinking US hops specifically, but if AU/NZ hops are fair game then Nelson is my fave. It’s got big C-hop grapefruit going on, with some nice winy complexity. Motueka is a close second - noble hop notes plus lime zest and lemongrass.
This is my first list (only US IPA hops):
Mosaic
Equinox
Azacca
Triple Pearl
Cashmere
Lemon Drop
Galaxy
Meridian
Galaxy is Tasmanian.
Ron Mexico.
Now those are not so well known, and hard to find!
HBC 438 if you want to research it.
Thank you. I have just fired my fact checker.
I don’t care where it comes from. Galaxy is out of this world!
Just saw this on Label Peelers website, in case anyone’s interested:
http://labelpeelers.com/beer-making/hops/experimental/hbc-438-experimental-1oz-hop-pellets/
Cool. I’d like to try some. Thanks.