Cryohops Consensus

I treat them as 2oz of regular hops. I can't say I noticed a huge difference using them vs regular hops.

 

Other than the price?

 

Yes definitely price lol. I prefer to buy hops by the pound and make beers based on the hops I have. Around me cryhops go for 5 dollars an ounce. I just bought a pound of eukanot for 10 dollars. Value just isn't there for me.

 

I've noticed a more pronounced bitterness compared to normal pellets, but besides that I don't notice any advantage to cryo hops. I'm almost finished using up a few ounces of all of the available varieties...I made single hops of my house session IPA with cryo and normal pellets to compare all of the varieties and I just don't see any major difference except perceived bitterness being higher with cryo. I've found hop hash to be almost a waste of money in comparison to cryo and regular pelleted hops as well. I'm of the opinion that it's more hype than true benefit after about 20 experimental batches.

 

Not a fan. I also prefer to buy hops by the lb . Went thru 2 lbs of different cryohops, that was more than enough for me.

 

The wife and I picked up some at NHC. Only used Loral so far, and since I had never used that variety before, my impressions were not definitive.

I used the Cryo Loral for dry hopping by itself. The aroma was not over the top. The beer turned out nice, and is an easy drinker. There are two more varieties to try when I get back to brewing ales - it is lager season.

 

I got a pound of loral sitting in my freezer... any recommendations for them. Are they lager only?

 

I'm not familiar with Loral, which is a new variety. But I can't think of any other hop variety that only has a place in lagers, so I'm pretty sure the answer would be "no."

 

Late hops or dry-hop for me. They seem to have a sharper, more acidic bite, and when used without traditional pellets, the bitterness seems really one dimensional. It’s hard to explain, but definitely noticable. I gave a beer made with just cryohops to people without telling them and got similar feedback.

 

Besides brulosophy I haven't seen a formal write up about loral so I wasn't sure how to use them.

 

While at a beer festival I had a Yards beer that featured Loral - that beer was a lager. I enjoyed drinking that beer. I spoke to a Yards brewer while drinking that beer but I neglected to ask how they specifically used Loral in brewing this beer (i.e., hops amounts/schedule). In that beer the Loral hop aroma/flavor was subtle and it was reminiscent to me of a Noble hop.

Maybe Loral would be a nice choice for an ale where hops are not a large feature of that beer style? For example a Blonde Ale, Cream Ale, Kolsch,...

Cheers!

 

https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2016/12/loral-hopped-funky-saison.html

 

I brewed a few loral beers last year and I was fairly underwhelmed. I would say don’t expect it to be an ipa hop

 

The best examples of beers focusing on Loral hops I’ve had were lagers. It’s rather noble with a bit more citrus (lemon specifically) and higher alphas. I would say it’s not really an IPA Hop on its own but could potentially add some interesting depth and complexity. I think in a hoppy Kölsch, Blonde, Pilsner it could be cool on its own.

 

After hearing mostly lackluster results from cryo hops at the homebrew level I can't help but wonder if their touted advantages are only realized at the commercial level with heavy hop additions and longer whirlpool times.

 

I have used the cryohops a few times, the only benefit I'm seeing is less trub so I get a few extra beers out of the batch.

 

Exactly...had a Loral and Citra "Exalted IPA" from Stone that was quaffable, but had way too much lemon harshness (short of Sirachi Ace ), imho.

 

Broken record here. Dry hop for sure dude, the only noticeable difference I've noticed.

 

Call me old fashioned, but it sounds like too much processing for me to bother. The farther from the original product I get, the less excited I am to use a product, good or otherwise.