Other Half (2020)

I had 7.20 DDH Green city on saturday. I haven't had any OH beer since around february-march. It was pretty damn enjoyable. I was expecting it to be on the sweeter side, but it wasn't.

 

I agree with the SD comment - last batch is very nice. Holding hope for C + G

 

On the strength of Forever Diamonds alone I'm pretty pumped for C+G.

 

Since we’re on the praising side of this thread right now, double strata chroma is a winner. For those who missed out on that first batch of All Strata Everything, this tastes (and smells) just as good.

 

I used to love Nelson, now I don't touch the stuff. I'd switch Nelson and Motueka. Motuaka is ubiquitous in NEIPAs and belongs in Tier 1 or 2. I'd bump Amarillo up to Tier 2. Can't comment on Enigma and Riwaka. Those strike me as more esoteric. I would also create a God Tier and put Citra there.

 

Is Galaxy still tier 1 for people? Or is it just because of Other Half?

 

Citra, Galaxy & Strata for me. The trifecta.

 

I'm with all of @timnyc 's changes. The Second Amendment (to the Hop Rankings). Aka "Timmy's Law"

 

Galaxy and Mosaic at their best are untouchable for me. Strata could probably get to that level too, but I'd like to try it a few more times. Citra is more of a second tier for me; it's good and reliable, but tastes one dimensional. I gotta say though that two month old Simcoe Daydream was mindblowingly good.

 

Totally spaced on Mosaic when I made that comment. The OG Batches of Double Mosaic blew me away when I first had them years ago.

 

I think you stumbled upon a future beer name right there.

 

Source-procured Hill Farmstead OG Double G would probably be in my top 3 or at least 5, beer experiences

 

Everybody knows that Hill Farmstead beer degrades in taste the further the keg is from the Hill ancestral home.

 

Hahaha exactly. No I was just making that point because in that case not only was I drinking the delicious beer, but it was my first time trying it and I was drinking it by the side of Caspian Lake in northern VT vs in a gritty Brooklyn bar - so added to the experience

 

Sure, I can agree that some of the best IPAs I've had have featured Galaxy. No doubt. I will also say that I've been consistently disappointed by Galaxy hopped IPAs for the last few years. I feel like there was a bad crop year in there and that scaling up on production has not been good for the quality. This is why, while admitting it has a high ceiling, I would not have Galaxy in tier 1.

 

Galaxy is too batch/brewery dependent for it to be top tier for me

I don't really have a tier, but my 'favorite' hops at the moment are Citra, Strata, Simcoe, and Amarillo

 

This 100%

@Feaor and I were talking about the recent bad Galaxy batches last weekend and he was mentioning that he heard/read somewhere they expanded their crops, but didn't equally expand the ability to harvest the crop. Which lead to it being on the vine too long resulting in flavor changes. Interesting aspect of it potentially.

 

I think it's fair to say that a couple of the all galaxy beers haven't quite sat right for over a year. I have had a couple of cans of DDH Space Daydream that just weren't drinkable. SD just isn't where it was. Overall though I've liked the combo beers a lot lately. I find Vapor Rings, DDH Oh..., Dreamiest, etc. as enjoyable as ever, and kind of chalked that up to a case of "less is more" with the galaxy crop atm. I read a book about hops and they described how the OAV of different aromatics can be affected by synergistic effects between them. Popped in my head when I recently had the Forever Diamonds, a mashup of a beer I don't enjoy (Forever Simcoe) with a beer I used to love (Space Diamonds), and it was one of my favorite IPAs recently. It had more in common with the SD I know and love than recent batches of SD, and yet presumably a lot less Galaxy, and then a bunch of Simcoe.

 

All this Galaxy talk seemed to have caused OH to release DDH All Galaxy Everything for curbside pickup today.

The power of this thread.