Yeah, beers that scream pumpkin are always bleh but I really like the ones that balance the flavor well and do it with at least a hint of subtlety.

Just finished this tasting at great notion, including (not pictured) double mosaic dream from other half, and DDH FP.

Overall consensus is...every Great Notion (i)ipa (juicebox, juice jr, invaders, ripe) >>>>>>>>>> julius / trillium / other half / tired hands / monkish / etc.

I'm kinda shocked really how bad julius is compared to juicebox/juice jr after the notable hype. It's honestly terrible side by side, and goes to show how much hype/reputation affects the beer culture.

Good news is I won't be wasting any more money on shipping for NE hops!

How I would rank everything based on myself and my LA friends:
1. juicebox
2. invaders
3. juice jr.
4. Monkish dreaming of the usual (not pictured)
5. de garde x3
6. topical depression
7. trilliums
8. julius, I guess
9. veil?
10. greenprint, 0/4 finished it.

ship me some great notion so i can compare, since julius, while not my top TH beer, is undeniably a fantastic beer. Wonder if it was quite old or shipped really poorly. In general I think TH stands above the other new england brewers in terms of malt usage and in terms of non-volatility.

liek having trill over it julius I find unfathomable, especially that trill lineup.

The Julius was canned 9/9,everyone thought it was far inferior and maltier than any notion/trillium we had. I was expecting the exact opposite, thought it'd be pure yeast/juice based on the reputation, doesn't even touch juicebox/juice jr imo.

maybe it's just a preference thing. just yeast/hops doesn't appeal to me. that's the trill recipe and they're so up and down and hit and miss.

eta: srs about willing to trade for great notion

Am I reading it right that you drank these beers at Great Notion Brewery?

Yea, you can bring cans/bottles as long as they open them for you.

Julius is "terrible"? I mean, lol. I believe there's better IPAs certainly, but no way it's legit terrible unless you had an off batch which afaik never happens or your palate was just wrecked from tasting tons of hoppy beers.

I agree OH Greenprint was outright bad though.

i haven't had many(any?) of those other beers, but Julius was downright fantastic. Would love to get my hands on some more TH beers.

It was the 1st beer we drank, had it alongside the GN ipas, and it just didn't compare for me. I didn't expect it to be that malty, so if that's your thing then it's probably amazing.

It was the 2nd maltiest behind the veil, which is gross to me and I don't get the hype with that either.

It's likely just that I prefer very little malt flavor in my ipas and a lot of others do.

I've loved every trillium iipa/ipa I've had in the past, fwiw. I know treehouse is the cult favorite, just different strokes I guess.

Hop fans,

So, I'm familiar with a bunch of hops names that I've had, but don't really remember differences or which I especially liked.

Lots of breweries around here release single hop beers, but they tend to be more special in nature.

I want to do some even playing field comparison between different hops.

Do you have suggestions for relatively wide distribution beers that are good examples of certain hops flavor profiles?

Or is that really just more specialty type stuff?

Mainly I just want to get to know specific hop flavors better, ideally in some side-by-side tasting.

Brewers,

I like sculpin a lot. Can one of you explain what happens with hops added at different stages in terms of flavors in the beer? Here's a recipe posted online:

HOPS
60 minutes
.50 oz warrior
.50 oz Magnum
.25 oz northern brewer
.25 oz columbus

30 minutes
.50 oz crystal
.25 oz centennial
.25 oz Simcoe

0 minutes
1.0 oz Amarillo

DRY HOP
2.0 oz of Amarillo
2.0 oz of Simcoe

This is why I'm not very clear on what hops I like best!

Julius is just a super delicious juicebomb and not malty at all for me. Granted, I've had it twice. Just shocked someone could think it's terrible, but obviously certain flavors might be really offputting for you. Will have to check out GN when I get to Portland.




Yeah I'm really bad at this too, but I have definitely had a bunch of Other Half's single hop series. Think my favorite hops are Citra, Mosiac, and Simcoe. Also loved Nelson Sauvin/Motueka. Liked Galaxy, Nelson, Amarillo. Dislike Cascade, Equinox, Chinook. But if there's a bunch of different hops in a beer I probably would do really poorly at guessing besides super obv stuff like east coast juice bombs having Citra.

I've liked some of the NZ hops I've been having too. Grimm did a beer called Cloudbusting with a bunch of fancy sounding NZ hops, very unique flavor profile. Very little bitterness, tons of berry/grape flavors.

Mullen,

Lol, citra is the only one I know for sure I really like.

It's possible it changed some while being shipped, but from my understanding a couple days at room temp shouldn't throw a beer off too much, but I'm not positive.

As I said it was only 11 days old, and it was certainly smooth as can be, just more of that malt/caramel flavor than I prefer. It may turn out you think GN are too much on the yeast side, who knows.

If you ever want to do a swap, let me know, usually have some GN crowlers on hand.

I'm not giving up on TH yet, I have a buddy in Boston who makes it out there very once in a while, and he is sending me some King J/green/doppel, and double watermelon milkshake from tired hands, will report back!

Also, I did get a couple cans of KingJJJ whenever it came out from buff, and that was amazing -- equally as good as juicebox, which is my personal favorite along with peach punch.

Not a hop expert either, but I generally hate the floral/spice hops like centennial, cascade, columbus, chinook, etc.

Definitely like citra/mosaic/simcoe/galaxy the most.

Always like galaxy, tends to give juice/citrus along with some bitterness that you usually don't get with mosaic/citra.

Beers with simcoe always seem to have a distinct piney taste along with some citrus.

Mosaic/citra are the juiciest imo.

Each type of hop has varying levels of alpha acid, which when broken down provides the bitterness. Heat is what breaks it down and the longer the hops are in the for the boil (60 min, 30min, etc), the more bitter it will become.

Dry hopping is what provides the majority of the aroma and flavor. I do believe the hops in the boil impart some flavor as well, but a lot of what you'll taste is through your nose.

I'm no expert, but those are the basics as far as I understand.

^ yeah, basically this. Beers are typically boiled for an hour. The hops that are boiled for the full hour will mainly add bitterness but not much flavour. Hops added partway through the boil will add more flavour and less bitterness. Dry hops (added after the main fermentation stage) add no bitterness but tons of aroma (which contributes to flavour). Hops are added in different amounts throughout the boil to get a balance of these various characteristics. For example, hop bombs usually have most of their hop additions late in the boil so you can get loads of flavour / aroma without too much bitterness.

If you want to know about specific hop characteristics, just google "hop profiles" - there are loads of online brewing resources that will give you a brief description on each hop.

Agreed, Citra is easy to identify, as is dank, piney Simcoe (my fave hop).

Blending different hops in a beer can create a whole is greater than the sum of the parts effect that can make individual strains hard to identify.

mullen,

nelson and nelson sauvin are the same thing, newb. I also find it highly unlike you dislike cascade and chinook as they're in a bajillion beers.

fedfan, today is in perp day. I drove home already so will miss this season. I kinda lucked out last year that it just happened to be there, and it wasn't a big deal, so got full allotment of 8 and 6 plus a couple growlers on back to back days. Making the trek for 6 cans.. not gonna be able to do it.

Plus it's just beer.

Yeah I was strictly naming single hop OH beers I've had off the top of my head, although obviously Nelson Sauvin/Motueka is not a single hop and idk why I put that. Definitely was not a fan of Cascade or Chinook as the single hop in beers, but I'm sure I like beers that have those hops in addition to others (as well as Equinox).

Def a total noob on this front though, which may or may not be embarrassing given the way too much amount of beer I drink. I kinda struggle even doing something like tasting notes - I just drink stuff and then like it on a scale of 1-10 or something.

i'm sure rundownhouse will correct us all, but I think hops used in the kettle are pretty key to the flavor, as well. I've heard Nate from TH that the kettle schedule is very important for their beers. And I think a lot of the criticism some brewers have for "New England Style IPAs" is some brewers basically just dry-hop the **** out of a mediocre base beer and it gives off some crazy smells and flavors for a short time. And it tends to be volatile batch to batch.

and in general, I think mosaic is prob most overrated hop on the scene these days. Just odd flavors most of the time for me, with some exceptions. Nightshift Whirlpool is apparently mostly mosaic which I would never have guessed. That is very peachy. Many other mosaic dominant beers are overly bitter and medicinal to me.

simcoe, nelson, and galaxy prob faves. Maybe citra but depends on the beer. Medusa Brewing also has an excellent single-hopped pale ale with just nugget hops, which I was surprised by. Vic Secret the next big buzz hop.

1-10 scale is where it's at. Gregg's Beer Reviews, while prob comical for hardcore beer nerds, is my fave cuz he gives pretty simple opinions. And he'll even deduct a point for not listing the bottling date just outta principal. It's awesome.

Most other beer review channels I just hate watch cuz I hate myself. They say they use the beer advocate rating scale, and then that ****ing Darwin douche takes it up a level with +/- (as in he'll give 97- or 97+), yet I rarely see any of those dicks rate a beer below like a 96. So really they have a 5 point system.

Hmmm, I've never once heard of TH that fresh being described as malty. I think all of the GN beers I've had have been delicious, and Peach Punch and Juice Jr compared well with TH (although I've heard they've since changed the recipe for juice jr and its not quite as good as it used to be). That said, I doubt I can say that they are as good as any of the best TH or Trillium that I've had. Julius is a middle of the road TH for me, but it is still fantastic and better than 99.9% of other IPAs. I wouldn't call it malty, but would say it is just straight juice with a bit or resiny hop character.

Beer nerds,

Thanks, really enjoying these posts and learning a lot!

Do any/many common IPAs have flavors that you consider to be primarily representative of one specific hop, or are they mostly all a combination of lots of flavors?

bluff,

I think calling Julius a middle of the road TH beer is pushing it and kinda the hip thing to say. I kinda say it myself, but then I have it and I'm like "oh yeah this is actually amazing." I like Green and Haze maybe a little more. Don't really care about their Verrrry GggggrrAzzze type beers as they're fairly rare. Very Hazy was crazy, though.

El D,

first off, if you can't name me 9 different unique fruit flavors, including the ripeness of the fruit, then you're a newb.

Founders Mosaic Promise is a widely available mosaic beer.
Smuttynose's finestkind ipa is pretty simcoe-y. There's other hops I'm sure. Look for a fresh package, though.
SNPA has a lot of cascade.
Revolution has a bunch of hop-varaint -Hero IPAs. They aren't single-hopped as far as I know. I thought their galaxy was pretty underwhelming representation of the hop, though. Citra I thought was great.

That's all I know in terms of widely distributed ones.