If a Belgian brewer were to say "Bavarian Hallertau" Hops to you, what would you take that to most likely mean? - Hallertau Hersbrucker? - Hallertau Mittelfruh? - Other?
The literal terminology of "Bavarian Hallertau" is a redundant statement. The Hallertau region of Bavaria is where the majority of German hops are grown (something like 90%) and all sorts of hop varieties are grown there: “Today, almost as much acreage in the Hallertau is devoted to bitter hops cultivation—mostly Hallertauer Magnum, Herkules, Taurus, Northern Brewer, and Nugget—as to aroma hops cultivation—mostly Perle, Hallertauer Tradition, Hallertauer Mittelfrueh, and Hersbrucker Spät.” https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/khw19G6u7O/ Would one variety of hop that is grown in the Hallertau region be of more of ‘interest’ to a Belgian brewer? Maybe the historically important noble hop of Hallertauer Mittelfrueh? Just guess work here I presume. Cheers!
Bavaria is a state within Germany, and is approximately equal to the size of West Virginia. If somebody handed you an ounce of West Virginian Hallertau, what would you make of it? Personally, I'd probably just shrug and say "well that's nice, thanks". I mean, are the quality of hops in West Virginia really significantly different from those of Kentucky or Pennsylvania? How about my homegrowns in Wisconsin? Meh... methinks probably not different by much. In similar fashion, are Bavarian grown hops a whole lot different than those from nearby Czechia? I dunno. Maybe, but I doubt it. Belgium? Maybe it matters, if there are coastal effects similar to what Oregon & Washington state do for ours. But it's probably just a bigger deal to someone to know they were grown in Germany and not in USA or South America or New Zealand or whatever. Those differences I'm sure might be much more noticeable than Bavaria vs. some other niche of Germany -- bah, it's all near each other in a small country, is there really that much terrior impact? I have some doubts. More experiments are needed.
Orval. There's so much contradictory information floating around, so one of the things I'm doing is paying attention to what the brewery itself says.
I think you could use US-05 in Orval and still have it turn out fine. It's all about the Brett way more than whichever main yeast they used along with it.
Below is from Kristian England in his discussion about cloning Orval: “Hops The hops are German Hallertauer and Styrian goldings. The Styrian Golding are a MUST being the more important hop for character. They definitely dry hop and Ive found that 1oz dry hopped didn’t give enough aroma and 2oz was too much so 1.5oz was pretty much right on. Dry hop the in last week in the secondary.” And: “Hops Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.50 oz. Hallertau Hersbrucker Whole 4.75 33.0 75 min. 0.75 oz. Styrian Goldings Whole 4.00 4.4 20 min. 0.75 oz. Styrian Goldings Whole 4.00 2.2 5 min. 1.50 oz. Styrian Goldings Whole 5.25 0.0 Dry Hop” Cheers! P.S. For a related but separate discussion I choose to use German Magnum hops for bittering and Styrian Goldings hops for flavor and aroma (end of boil) additions when brewing my Dubbels.
Actually, the main yeast is easy: WLP510 Bastogne Ale. Grain bill and hops are more controversial/unknown. But there are clues. I have tasted a couple of attempts at Orval clones that were tasty, but didn't really come close. One thing they had in common was a primary fermentation with Orval dregs, but Orval doesn't use Brett in primary.
Thanks. Unfortunately, Kristian's take on this has some things that are refuted by Orval's own web site (and some others who have had the rare privilege to visit the brewery). For example, one of the hops used is Strisselspalt. But the info is certainly appreciated. I'll have to read the discussion.
Yeah, I just noticed this on their website and can't say I ever saw that in perhaps a dozen descriptions for clone recipes. Is this clone why you were asking about sturdy bottles a few days back? I am now remembering that I dumped my 2019 homage to Orval. It wasn't worthy (oxidized hops, I think). Maybe I need to get back on that horse (blanket?).
This is a decent blog on a visit to orval from a few years ago, I don't know if it helps you further if you haven't allready seen it. http://edsbeer.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-visit-to-orval-brewery.html
Thanks! Yes, as it happens I have already harvested the info from Ed's. Good stuff. I'm considering it #2 in reliability, just behind Orval's own site.
The information on the orval site is quite old ( in internet terms at least ), it looks like they have reused it over the years, wayback machine has this from 2003. But it has been updated as well https://web.archive.org/web/20030602062317/http://www.orval.be/an/FS_an.html I wonder at what point in time and how many times they have cheanged the way they brewed it, I known in BLAM that it was mentioned it changed a bit. Anyway, if you get close you'll have a great beer
Bavarian Hallertau differentiates it from the Bavarian Spalt or Bavarian Tettnang regions. Other than that, it could be anything from Mittelfrüh to Cascade (yes, they grow Cascade hops in the Hallertau).
