The Hop situation

[jamis]

Just looking at some of the online brew suppliers and notice alot of hops have gone awol, particularly some of the nice imported us ones that I have been wanting to try, Amirillo us Casade Simcoe chinnook..browsing Dunedin Malt House's hop list is apocolyptic! makes you want to just buy whats left and build a hop storage bunker! Liberty, Hauraki and brewers coop still seem to have decent supplies of NZ hops (which I love anyway) and Liberty does have centennial which I will be getting in to.
I thought the us hop harvest would have been around aug/sept so there must still be supplies around? or in the pipeline? joking?

[David Wood]

Yeah, I'm keen to give Simcoe, Horizon, Amarillo and Citra a go!

[jamis]

Citra is a new one on me... ?
It must be said that we grow some world class hops here in nz - Nelson Sauvin, NZ Cascade, Riwaka,Nelson Sauvin, Rakau, NELSON SAUVIN! Motueka and the price is allways going to be right when comparing with imports.
Its just nice to have a variety.

[denimglen]

Craftbrewer Aus have just got Citra in.

Recently they also got the Chinese hops in, which are Chinese grown Columbus, Cascade and Saaz, they're cheap as chips but I have no idea what the quality is like.

Where are you checking? None of our NZ stores have ever seemed to have had good supplies of US hops, except for the odd few kilo's that turn up and disappear pretty quickly.

Craftbrewer has a lot of new season stuff in, it's always a good last (and first) resort.

[jamis]

Citra from Craftbrewer sounds interesting...
(Pellets 90gm)
USA - Crop '09 (AA 11.1%) NEW SEASON
Citra is a new USA hop which to us has very similar aroma qualities to NZ hops.
Initial impressions - Citrus, peach, apricot, passion fruit, grapefruit, lime, melon,
gooseberry, lychee fruit, pineapple, mango & papaya. More info coming after in
house trials & customer feedback. more AUD $8.50
could be the new kid on the block.

[James P]

similar aroma qualities to NZ hops

Trying to cash in on NZ's world class hops!

[Reviled]

Wowza, $1.50 for 90gms of chinese hops!! Thats almost too cheap :oP lol

[James P]

Given the pollution and sub human conditions of the workers I would think it should be cheap!

There is a discussion on AHB about them.... not that I have read it yet.

[Pilgrim]

And don't forget the Chinese Milk Powder scandal. I'd want to be pretty sure there weren't any nasty chemicals in there before I purchased them.
Dioxin flavoured Cascrade anyone? - No thanks.

[JoKing]

A new shipment of hops has just arrived for Liberty Brewing. I am picking them up next weekend. On the menu is:

Simcoe
Amarillo
Chinook
Columbus
Cascade

As mentioned I already have Centennial - all of these hops are fresh 2009 harvest. As soon as they are in my freezer (which is currently at -24 degrees celcius) I will be advertisiing them on Liberty.

I hope this information finds welcome ears.

As far as Nelson Sauvin goes - it's in the same boat as Riwaka now... none available until March / April. I have a half a kilo left - and that's it.

As far as the US hops go... lets just say that I should have ordered just enough to go around.

I think I might have to bomb a IIIIPA: 25%abv 400IBU.

Sounds worth while.

[James P]

And the link to Chinese hops on AHB

here

[Matthew]

Nice. Might get a chance to try an Arrogant Bastard with that Chinook...

[jamis]

Good work joking, have you worked out pricing yet?
always prefer to support nz businesses particularly in these times