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!
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