I'm using Northdown hops for bittering in my next bitter, but I'm curious if anybody here has used them for flavor and/or aroma and if they liked the results.
I brewed this beer a little over a year ago, and really liked it. I don't know what the hell the point of using northdown and northern brewer was, but the end result was quite good. I'd had Butcombe Bitter in England a year or so before brewing the beer, and I can't honestly say if the recipe was a close clone or not, but the beer looked more or less the same and went down real easy. As far as what northdown tastes and smells like as an aroma hop, it's kind of hard for me to say, but I personally like it. It's one of those hops that you just taste a bit of, then sit there contemplating 'what the hell did that just taste like?', lol. I also just used it in an 80 shilling-style beer (with some late additions), and it tastes fine to me there as well. It's definitely a subtle hop.
I've dryhopped with it. Lots of flowers. Not much (or any) citrus. It was a nice, middle-of-the-road hop.
