Interesting hop combinations

I don't know that there are really any wrong/bad combinations, but some are better than others, depending on what you want your beer to smell and taste like.

I have used Amarillo and Fuggles together, in a sort of English/American Pale Ale hybrid. It worked well I think. In an Imperial Stout? I dunno. Maybe. First, ask yourself if you really want your Imperial Stout to be a hop forward beer. If not, I would eliminate Amarillo or any of the more aggressive American/Southern Hemisphere hops.

ETA: Meant to mention... Kate the Great, which some might say was the best RIS ever, used 6 or 7 (roughly) different hops. But essentially the same beer could have been made with one or two, IMO. Given the other characteristics of the beer, and the (typical) time between brewing and drinking, there's not a whole lot of hop character left.

 

It is a bit premature to state “favorite” but I recently brewed my version of a Weldworks Juicy Bits IPA where I used equal amounts of Citra, Mosaic and El,Dorado at both end of boil (and hop-stand) and dry hopping. The beer is only a couple of weeks in the bottle (and still young IMO) but I am really digging this combo. I will have a more mature feeling about this beer in another couple of weeks but I feel comfortable at this stage to recommend this combo.

Cheers!

 

I understand that desire, and have seen it in countless new brewers. But I believe the guys (and gals) that stick with it tend to be the ones that start simple, learn the ropes, and go from there. As musicians sometimes say, "learn the rules before you break them."

 

UK hop twist (actually German/American/New Zealand): HM (Huell Melon), Sterling, Nelson (Sauvin)

 

NZ hops are great imo, you can't really go wrong with them

One thing that's quite interesting to do if you get into it is to try the same hop but grown in different countries, as they tend to be fairly different despite being genetically identical. You can for example get US, UK, NZ and slovenian grown cascade.

 

Cascade and centennial. Citra and/or centennial/cascade. Citra with any other fruity American hop.

 

+1 to Prep, to add,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, columbus cascade chinook centenial with a dry hop kicker of citra and more centenial

 

Citra, Citra, Citra, and in combo with others. But I’m one of those weird, “hop heads”.

 

Galaxy and..... we’ll anything cause Galaxy on it’s own is insane

Nelson/Motueka/Kohatu

El Dorado, Enigma, Vic Secret

Mosaic, Strata, Nugget

Idaho 7, Citra, Bravo

I would recommend Instead of splitting equal additions at each opportunity use one Hop at different spots. Columbus in the boil, Mosaic in WP, Citra in DH... or if you are going to blend favor one hop significantly at each addition.

 

Yeah, and similarly to cooking you generally get much better results once you start to simplify a bit and build up recipes where you understand more about what each ingredient is doing and how they'll work together.

For hop combinations, I'm not an expert but feel like I've got to level one quite comfortably using two tactics:
i) See what sort of combinations of hops your favourite breweries use for different styles and use those as a starting point.
ii) Look up descriptions of hops - homebrew shops, hop merchants and hop-growers associations can all have quite good online info - and see whether you think the sort of flavours they describe will give you what you're after.
There's more subtlety to it than that, but combining those approaches should enable you to get pretty decent results.

 

Mosaic
El Dorado
Citra
Motueka
Azacca

Azacca Denali? I’ll let you know next week

Also Topaz is a really cool hop but I haven’t seen it in awhile

 

I have used a combo of equal parts Amarillo and Simcoe in a few dark beers (but not an imperial stout) and its awesome.

 

To me, Simcoe has a unique woodsy/tropical fruit/pine aroma that goes nicely with dark or roast malt.