I had a Brooklyn winter ale at a bar in Illinois across the river from St. Louis. Definitely a solid winner. The simcoe hops put me over the top. Very creamy easy drinking ale. I will be drinking this again. Try it.
I assume you mean IPA. Now I want to try this beer because of your post, but when I've seen it in stores this year, I always thought how odd it is that so many brewing companies are releasing beers these days that seem to be referencing SN Celebration - an unexpected source of new inspiration.
I had a beer from Forest and Main called Merriment, all C hops and they can it a Celebration and an old school ipa. It was very good but the OG was better. This photo is from NYE, I have none of either beer left to do a true comparison. The BBC red IPA I had back in 2021 and did not love it. Maybe I need to try it again and not compare it to Celebration. Enjoy
Over in the homebrewing forum, several users have bemoaned that the Simcoe now is not the Simcoe of 15 years ago. Less piney, more fruity. Still the hop that will be a decision maker for me when choosing between two otherwise similar beers, though. Simcoe or Citra/Mosaic? Simcoe every time! FWIW, I never really got much cattiness from Simcoe beers, or maybe was never really bothered by it. The diesel from Nelson Sauvin and some other NZ varieties, very much so.
100% I brewed an all Simcoe IPA and a Simcoe/Amarillo IPA last year and I found the same thing. I thought had done something wrong, or the hops were mislabed. Simcoe years ago was my favorite hop, before Citra. Now I can't stand either one.
Citra and Mosaic seem to just be ubiquitous. Cascade used to be the hop that was everywhere back in the day, but I've yet to avoid a beer with heavy Cascade because I was tired of it. I'm guessing that the change in Simcoe is due to agronomic pressures and that the variety has changed a bit due to maturation. All hop plants of a variety are essentially clones, after all.
I used to be a BIG fan of Simcoe a decade+ ago when it presented a piney flavor. Contemporary Simcoe, at least the products available for sale to me, hav
I am not sure if this explains Simcoe but a very impactful variable to how a given hop tastes is when the hops are harvested (early harvest vs. later harvest).
I drank a 16oz. can of Double Simcoe a few weeks ago. I cannot remember if it tastes the same as it did 15 years ago but it was still really good. I rated it a 4.15
Yep, agronomic pressure. Contemporary brewers seem to place more value on fruitiness than on piney flavor, so they may have started harvesting at a different time to meet this demand.
Here’s another one for you simcoe lovers. Fat Heads - Head Hunter Simply Simcoe was one of the offerings in the Head Hunter variety pack. It has the simcoe nose. Taste is grapefruit, pine, and stoned fruit. Soft mouthfeel light bitterness.
Yeah, I like it, but I only got 1 pk of it this winter, when it first arrived. Normally get 3-4 pks(or more) over the course of Nov- Jan. Had a bit of diacetyl . Not undrinkable, but not completely enjoyable either. I was hoping it was a one-off , just that something happened in transit/storage to that particular case/pallet , not in the brewing , but with Celebration right there , why bother gambling?
