Last year (fall of 2015) I placed an order at Hops Direct, and they sent me a free pound of Pilgrim hops. I just got around to using them. I brewed an English IPA with English malt and crystal, and I used the Pilgrim hops for bittering and finishing. It came out delicious. It tasted like a heavily hopped English cask ale. I love it!
Has any one else used them?
Interesting…can you describe the flavor and aroma? Sorry, I know that’s difficult and very subjective but this hop sounds like it might be good in other English styles.
Can you compare it to something like EKG, or Fuggles? I made a fair amount of bitter and generally use EKG in it, but something different might be nice for the next batch of it.
On many hop charts it is compared to Challenger as it is a fairly high alpha hop with high levels of the oil selenium. I have always used EKG in my English styles, and Pilgrim is not very different than EKG. If anything, it’s flavor seems milder and smoother yet with the same earthy, floral English taste. There is also a hint of lemon in there somewhere. My first impression is that it tastes like cask ales that I drank when in the UK.
I used them in a bitter.
It was very good.
Yeah, seeing I have the better part of a pound of them, they have just become my go-to hop for English styles.