I am looking to make and India Session Ale with a bunch of late hop additions and I can’t decide which hops to blend to really blow out the tropical fruit aroma some of the newer hop varieties offer. Here are some of the hops I might be interested in using.
Mosaic
Galaxy
El Dorado
Equinox
I would be willing to blend in any of the following hops as needed to round out the aroma:
Mosaic, Galaxy and Equinox, balanced by a healthy amount of Simcoe sounds pretty good to me.
EDIT - I’ve made an excellent IPA using Mosaic, Galaxy, and Simcoe. And I recently tried a local IPA made with Equinox and most or all of the hops I suggested, so I feel confident in the recommendation. However to learn the unique attributes and suitability of each, single hop beers are definitely helpful.
My suggestion would be to try a single hop edition with each of them if possible. Then you can blend the finished product together with one or more of the others in a glass and test ratios and how they complement each other.
I agree that it would be a fun experiment to try a single hop version for all of these beers, but in my experience, single hop beers don’t turn out as well as a combination of hops.
Also, I don’t have enough time to do four separate brew days.
To my palate, Citra is still the king of tropical fruit, with Galaxy probably 2nd place. If you want to push the tropical fruit hard, I’d go 1 part each Citra and Galaxy, and 0.5 parts of Mosaic and Equinox. You could also use a touch of Amarillo to bring in some orange/stonefruit to fill out the fruit, or hit it with Simcoe to add back some dank/pine as a counterpoint.