This article was originally posted in 2014.
That past month went quickly! Due to work commitments I’ve not been able to do as much as I had hoped, however all 5 brews are now complete (the final brew – First Gold – is ready to bottle, although sadly I haven’t had time to dry hop it) and most have been tasted with varying results.
Boadicea
This hop is delicious, it has a spicy, lightly floral aroma with good hop spiciness in the mouth. This is probably my favourite of the 5 hops, although I think it would well with another hop to give it something extra. The beer ended up about 5.6%.
Bramling Cross
After a nice amount of conditioning (about two weeks) the blackcurrant and citrus notes really started to shine through. I am impressed that this was the first hop I’ve really noticed a described flavour come through that wasn’t overly subltle.
Pilgrim
I ended up with a 5.25% beer and sampled it after one week of conditioning. I’m not sure if something went a bit wrong with the brew or the hops just don’t come across as described, but so far I haven’t been too impressed with Pilgrim. It had an almost off smell to it, I can’t quite place my finger on it. I will keep trying it to figure it out, but I’m not sure how to use this hop again. The most likely option would be to use it solely as a bittering hop, with a better aroma hop later in the boil, in a darker beer like an amber ale or porter/stout.
First Gold
Supposedly First Gold is a great aroma hop, so I’ll have to see how it goes. I had no time to dry hop last week so this week I will just bottle it and hope it turns out hoppy enough. It had a very high OG at 1.065 which I didn’t liquor back so I imagine it will have a fairly high FG, with a residual sugar flavour in there.
What comes next? Well unfortunately I am busy for the next few weeks so there will be no brewing, but since I have an abundace of different hops I am tempted to go for an IPA. I also picked up some German Hallertauer Mittlefruh hops so would like to try a light wheat ale or something. We are also coming up to the time of year the Elderflower comes out, so as well as wine, cordial, etc I think some kind of Elderflower beer would be great.
Here are some photos of different brews – Target and Bramling Cross ready to drink and Pilgrim fermenting:
