I am making a APA with conan yeast, 35 IBU warrior for bittering, and citra in whirlpool and dryhopping. I started dryhopping 3 days ago and let my girlfriend taste an intermediate result. Her reaction was: “It does not taste like beer but like another drink.” She could or would not specify what other drink :-[ Question: should I add some other dry hop to make the beverage less “other drink”-like, or should I just ignore the comments of my girlfriend? If the first, which hops do you recommend?
What do you taste? If its right to you than ignore could just need more time.
Yeah, if the ‘other drink’ is grapefruit or orange juice or something along those lines, you may have just hit your target. In my experience, women’s palates are different in general (they are sensitive to some aromas that many men either aren’t or find pleasant). My wife says my Mosaic IPA smells like cat piss and orange juice. I love the hell out of it, though.
Yes, it is grapefruit. I get that too! 8)
I try to avoid getting constructive reviews from non-craft beer drinkers.
I do however like to torture my wife with all these “nasty” beers; the looks on her face are priceless ;D
The newer hop varieties have changed the traditional expectations for beer in my opinion. I could see how someone who hasn’t had a ‘modern’ APA could have a completely different impression of what it should be. In my opinion, certain hop varieties are a bit too aggressive and remove some of the ‘beer’ quality…
I tend to do that with IPAs to see if I hit my target profile. If my wife makes ‘that face’, I know it’s going to go over well with the target ‘market’.
Same here. My wife hates hoppy beers - she likes the tropical aromas of some the newer hops but one sip and she gets the ‘bitter beer face’. Funny stuff.
all i have to say when my wife asks what I’m drinking is “IPA”, and she doesn’t want to taste it…sometimes I just say IPA even if I’m drinking a dortmunder or something. evil way of more beer for me 
i have got her liking my Pale Ales though…shes coming around.
No no no that’s not it. My girlfriend loves IPA. The bitterer the betterer. It’s the citra. And she hasn’t said it’s bad, just that it doesn’t taste like beer.
You got it dead on - it is the Citra. More specifically, it’s the oils from fruity hop varieties, but Citra is one of the fruitiest and oiliest there is. When the hops are spot-on in my IPA it tastes like grapefruit-pineapple juice. It just needs an umbrella in it and you could serve it in a tiki glass.
I suspect that the fresh fruit juice character comes more from the dry hops than the whirlpool, but I haven’t done a test to confirm that.