And the Winners Are....

I just opened one of the Amarillos, and I have to say that I'm quite surprised.  It's kind of like a weaker version of Simcoe, and I was expecting something a bit more unique.

Not that it's necessarily bad, just not as good as I had hoped.  Here's the breakdown:

Bitterness:  Not really prominent.  Sort of like the Simcoe, but almost undetectable.
Flavor:  Kind of like watered-down grapefruit juice.  Not quite as tart as the other varieties.
Aroma: Same as the flavor.  Grapefruit, but weak.

I also realized that I never gave a Willamette report:

Bitterness:  Weak, not very noticeable.
Flavor:  Floral and fruity.  Less citrusy than its other American cousins.
Aroma:  Light.  Not unlike cascade, but very hard to detect.

So I believe, after all this, that I am ready to begin developing the recipe for TPB.  I will definitely be using
Centennial hops for bitterring.  The Flavor hops may be a mix of Cascade and Simcoe, but I will probably just use one or the other at first.  Aroma will most likely include the Columbus.

I am waiting until after the holidays to start, since shopping, school, and home renovations will be taking up some time.  I'll check back in soon with a final recipe.

The Next Phase of the Quest

This will be my "The Empire Strikes Back" or "The Two Towers".  Since, after this weekend, I will have tasted all of the hops I intended, I need to start thinking of how best to mix them.  So far, Centennial has my favorite bitterring characteristics.  Most of the others kind of stuck to the back of my throat and made me feel like Dragon Breath from "House Party" (3 movie references in one paragraph...not bad).  I think Cascade had a nice flavor, as did the Willamette, and the Simcoe, with its distinctive grapefruit mimicry, was probably the best aroma.

These are not, by any means, final verdicts.  First of all, I haven't even tried the Amarillo yet, and second, you never know what happens once the yeast is done its work.

But this will be the next phase.  I will organize the hops into the 3 categories (bitterness, flavor, and aroma), and rate them according to how much I liked their contribution.  Then I will simply make a batch with the top three.  If something is off or missing, I will switch it up for the next batch.  My posts should be a bit more frequent now, because I plan to get another fermenter and brew once per week instead of waiting two weeks for the fermenter to be free.  This way, I should be able to get 3 or 4 beers going, all with different hop combinations, before I even taste the first.

On another note, My brewing partner and I have worked out a schedule for brewing in the new year, and it looks like we will have a steady stream of cases to keep us nice and stocked pretty much 100 percent of the time.  We have two beers that we believe we have mastered, a German Pilsner and a Dunkel, which we are very proud of, and are switching our brews to all-grain pretty much immediately.  I may never buy beer again...ok, that was too far.

Later!