Love/Hate Relationship with Citra

I love Citra beers but I have never encountered this.

 

I've never heard of this. You sure there isn't another hop in there that's causing this? Sometimes "cattiness" happens in IPAs, but I've never heard of it with Citra.

 

Hmmm. Citra is the only hop I can recognize so I may be a bit biased. I've never had the same problem as you describe but I am pretty diligent about dates when I buy and aside from beers meant to age, everything I buy goes straight into the beer fridge. Maybe I'll look for a bottle of something I know has Citra and make sure it's old to see if I do taste what you referred to.

 

>confused

 

I see what you did there

 

I've brewed some very delicious DIPAs with Citra, some of my favorite recipes. Without fail, they quickly fall off leading to harsh boozy beers sometime after 4 weeks. It usually happens very quickly as well. For this reason I have removed Citra from my recipe and moved on to other hop varieties.

 

Oh man, that's why you need to drink the citra beers BEFORE they are even bottled.

Everyone knows that by the time IPAs hit shelves they are already bad. Only within the first 18 hours are they even remotely good. Outside of that it's too old.

 

Are you describing an onion-ish flavor?

 

Think Simcoe is the supposed cat piss hop, though it never bothered me none. Haven't had this issue with Citra, which is a hop I tend to encounter often.

 

This for one I have alot of experience with. Bottles have sat in the fridge for months in my house and while the initial hop fades ever so slightly the beer is still amazin.

 

You store those two in the fridge?

 

I personally have never noticed it. Maybe it was something I just didnt pick up.

 

Simcoe will certainly get oniony. When Oskar Blues first came out with Gubna, it tasted like onion and tuna fish. Strongly so.

 

I brew a Citra pale ale here at home and the only time I notice anything remotely off about scent or flavor is when it's entirely too warm. Around room temp the beer smells quite a lot like cat piss, but at any drinking temperature it's just super delicious. I can't say my batches have lasted much longer than a few weeks, but I have yet to notice any real changes even at the end of the keg. I'll try and slow down the consumption of this most recent batch to see if there is a cliff it wants to jump off after a month!

 

Of the "a la mode" hops I'm more of a Simcoe and now Mosaic guy. Never really got into Citra. I also noticed my homebrewed IPA lasted a lot less when using Citra rather than other hops.