I just used Cluster in my latest American lager, which I’ve only had 2 bottles of so far. I’ll look for the elderberry but I have to say, so far the beer does not seem terribly fruity to me. Good solid firm bitterness for a lager, but berry… I dunno.
Good discussion here. As for favorite bittering hops, I have had good success with Warrior and Nugget. Magnum was too smooth for my tastes. Now I’m working through 8 oz of Millenium as an all-purpose bittering hop, and I’ve been very pleased with the result. I tend to go with low-cohumulone hops for bittering.
I generally use Nugget for IPA. Magnum for lager and smooth bitterness.
Yeah, I had bought the whole CoH matters, then the no-it-doesn’t, all on what I read. Then lately I reconsidered again, because I started bittering with Simcoe, SUPER low CoH. But now I’m willing to believe that maybe these beers seem so smooth just because they really are less bitter, while I was thinking of much-bandied-about phrases like “less aggressive perception of bitterness.” So I guess the test to do is brew the same beer with a high CoH hop–but how do you make the conversion? I mean, is there a rule-of-thumb relation between change in %CoH and change in BU?
Oops,sorry, I should have read the link Hopfenundmalz gave above! Just did. That seems to cover it.
I use Magnum mostly in my German beers for bittering. I think it is basically a big Hallertauer hop, or so I was led to believe. On American Lagers I use Cluster for bittering.
I don’t buy hops specifically for bittering. Anything above 9% AA is going to be fine for a 60 minute bittering addition. Since you have a limited amount of hops you are willing to buy, it makes sense to pick a bittering hop that is useful beyond bittering. In this case, I suggest Apollo as your versatile bittering hop. Very high AA. Good orange and ginger flavor from 20-0. Strong aroma as a dry hop.
