I’ve seen many hops descriptions saying 'floral and a few even ‘rose.’ I’m looking for the most rose and/or floral, not citrus etc. for a special project. Thanks
Not surew about hops, I have used rose hips and beer and didn’t like the results. You might check out Rose Water. I had considered using this once point in time for a larger batch of beer but decided not to because of price.
Look for hops high in geraniol
Centennial has cis-rose oxide. Try it.
Not sure what the parameters are of this project but we make rhodamel (rose mead) with actual rose petals. I imagine in a beer I would add for the last day in fermenter before packaging. Nothing will get you more rose flavor without too much of a perfume effect than that.
I prefer wild Ragosa rose petals. Cultivated roses work fine but be sure that they have not been sprayed. We pick as they bloom and freeze the petals until we have enough.
Rose hips would have very little if any rose aroma, just a puckery sour. Roses are very close relatives of apples and the hips are the apples. They are incredibly high in vitamin c and have a citrus like sour that can be ok in moderation.
Thanks for the advice!
What Denny said. Also IIRC, geraniol is involved in biotransformation so don’t use a NEIPA yeast.
Aha! Thanks for the biotransfirmation clue. This from goodbeerhunting.com:
“yeast can transform geraniol—an organic compound that is produced by hops, as well as marijuana and other plants—into geranyl acetate, an ester that smells abundantly, opulently, of roses.”
Now to find a high geraniol hop or just the right geranium…
I think what kramerog meant was that biotransformation from yeast can change geraniol into citranellol and that changes the flavor profile from a rose and floral one to a citrusy one (HOPS by Stan Hieronymus, p. 21, 26). This occurs when hops are added during active fermentation. Dry hopping after the yeast are finished will maintain the original flavor profile of the hops.
Ah, thanks for the clarification
Centennial IMO is the closest to rosy floral but still I don’t think rose so much as aggressively floral. Honestly the thing that smells most like roses are actual rose petals provided you can find petals from rose plants not from a florist. The roses grown for florists grow for appearances and have very little aroma. They are sprayed with artificial rose aroma. Roses in gardens can vary between equally as un-aromatic to strongly aromatic. You would be better off finding a neighbor who deadheads their roses than buying a box of rose petals from your local florist.