Unfashionable NZ Hops

[Richard Deeble]

I'm intrigued by brewing with some of the less popular hops we have in New Zealand, particularly with high demand for things like riwaka and sauvin. I'm sure there is a good use for these hops beyond bittering in boring mass market lagers.

In particular, I'm interested in people's experiences with the flavour, aroma and bittering quality of hops like sticklebract, super alpha, green bulllet and pacific jade. I've used super alpha as a late addition along with some frutier NZ varieties and it went down really well in an English IPA I did but I have no experience with the others. I love Southern Cross as a late addition too, although I guess that is more widely used.

[Grant R Baker]

Super Alpha are on my 'Never Use Again" list.

 

I experimented with several brews using it as a bittering or flavouring hop. Each time it left a sour after taste that wouldn't go away. I like hopiness but not like that.

Since I have played with Pacific Gem (Big Tick, try it in a bitter or amber ale), Northern, Nugget.

I have yet to try out the green bullet or pacific jade.

btw you can get a real since of them by just making a cup of tea from each. Boiling water onto a coupe of pellets, leave for 10 minutes and taste.

+1 to Scarrfie's PG then NZ Fuggles... great combo.

[Hillman]

That's a good point, although I am more of a "let's just see what happens" kind of brewer when it comes to hop bills. The brew today more or less lurched from one disaster to the next, mainly having too much hop matter in the kettle at the end so that the tap got blocked during transfer, and then discovering that there was a small leak in the fermenter after it was full, despite checking for watertightness when I sanitized it. I transfered to another fermenter but there's a better than good chance that this beer will be completely undrinkable anyway. So perhaps we'll never know what a hop back full of green bullet does to a beer.

[Grant R Baker]

Only every had trouble with hop matter clogging when trying to filter the hops matter out.

So now I just transfer to Secondary..98% of the yeast cake and hope matter stays in Primary and that is with most of the trub from the kettle in it (waste of late hops if I didn't).

These are pellets I'm using.. I'm sure whole cones are a new set of problems.

[Hillman]

I think I just got impatient and didn't let it settle for long enough. I have a hop blocker that usually does the trick, but it got pretty badly clogged. I did use a lot of hop pellets. I might bag them next time. I haven't had problems using flowers before as I've bagged them in the kettle and they can't escape from the hop back, where they act as a filter and keep hop matter out of the fermenter. The big issue with them is they suck up a whole lot of wort. It just didn't go that way yesterday. 

[jt]

I've used Super Alpha heaps for bittering and I like it, nice and neutral to my taste so it doesn't interfere with the later hops.
Also loved it as a later addition in the NZ Hops Irish Red recipe. Green bullet and super alpha, how unfashionable is that?
Tried a 100% super alpha pale ale. By itself it was a bit harsh. I'd use it again, but mix it up a bit.

[Grant R Baker]

Yeah.. it is a lot of personal taste and preference.

 

During the last few years I have found I have a strong preference for Fuggles, EK Goldings, Styiran Goldings, Northern , Nugget, PG and of course Riwaka+++. I have used many in bittering and flavouring combinations and they just can't go wrong.

 

I am a little dubious of the very latest ones, mostly because I doubt I see them next year.

 

BTW if anyone knows how to get into commercial Hop growing send me a PM with some info... I'ld like to see if it is worth while to get more Riwaka on the shelves in coming years.

[Stu McKinlay]

There's a good deal of super alpha as late hop and dry hop in Motueka Raven. Quite herbal in there, I think.

I'm pretty keen to use it in a strong golden ale as well... blown away by it when I tried one of kieran Haslett-Moore's beers using it.

 

 

The one's I have never had any success with are Pacific Gem and Sticklebract.

[Scarrfie]

Have you put Sticklebract with Motueka? I did it in a lager last winter and the last few bottles downed recently were actually pretty good. 50/50 all the way through. I have a Czech Pilsner two weeks into fermentation to see if I just got lucky or not :-) But I want to try the same theme with Super Alpha. I have a PKB clone maturing BTW, that and Smokin Bishop were the highlight of Beerfest for me.

Motueka Raven will be on the shopping list.

[Dan]

Ive used GB  as bittering in Stout, IPA and Bookbinder clone. Worked well but it has got a harsher bite when compared to say Southern cross for bittering. Prefer SC myself

[David R]

Stumbled across this thread recently and found it interesting, so I thought I'd bump it back up.

After spending nearly $60 on hops for my most recent IPA (23L batch with Citra, Mosaic and Sauvin) I decided to do a couple of English-style beers for a change. Originally I'd planned a traditional ESB and an English IPA, but after having a read of this I thought I'd put a kiwi spin on it and do the ESB with NZ Fuggles. And instead of the English IPA I'm going 95% Red X and 5% med crystal, and I've got 100g NZ Willamette and 50g Taiheke (NZ Cascade) to go with it (and was thinking of using the WLP002 from the ESB too). Not sure whether to dry hop it or just go with a slightly larger whirlpool addition, any suggestions? 

[Richard Deeble]

NZ Fuggles sounds yum as does the other hop combo. I like the idea of using 002 as well, will definitely bring out the malt and the marmalade provided you deal with the diacetyl it inevitably kicks out. 

I really want to do a really hoppy but English take on an an NZIPA sometime as I think we don't appreciate what the combo of English yeast and our homegrown English varieties can do for flavour, especially when it comes to getting a big orange zest character. There were some excellent earlier NZ craft beers which featured Styrian Goldings in large quantities that were great. 

[David R]

Sounds intriguing, let me know what you come up with! Now you've got me thinking of using the built-up cake of 002 to brew something stronger, IENZIPA?!

I've never used 002 before, I'm guessing a diacetyl rest is a must then?