#amarillo hops

What’s Old is New Again

Baerlic Brewing is doing something different. Their beers taste very unique among Portland breweries. While every other brewery is falling over themselves making ultra-fruity IPAs and added-fruit ales, Baerlic is making bitter, toothsome brews. The beer is more akin to that brewed at an early aughts microbrewery than a contemporary hophouse, but they utilize the same modern hops and flavors.

For example, the latest New Noise is brewed with classic Cascade hops – like an old Sierra Nevada brew – but also Amarillo, El Dorado, and Azacca – the latter two were bred in the last ten years. In a single pint of New Noise you can taste the entire evolution of American IPA in reverse order, it moves from the modern and juicy, to the old and hard in a single sip. Upfront, the beer tastes of tangy tangerine and passion fruit, very de rigueur. On the backend, you get a really firm handshake of pine and spruce. It’s earthy. The body isn’t pillowy or fluffy. It’s oily. 

Controlled Demolition

Sometimes when I drink a new beer, especially an IPA, I get anxious about how long it’s been on the shelf. I’m scared I’m not getting the optimal product. Freshness has become the rallying cry of the modern brewer. “Best before yesterday” is literally printed on cans of Sticky Hands. So if I don’t like the beer, it’s my fault, right? I should’ve opened it earlier, bought it on tap, drank it in the brewery. 

Breakside Brewery takes a different approach. Head brewer Ben Edmunds knows the beer will be different in twenty days, thirty days. And instead of throwing his hands in the air, he decided to engineer his recipe to taste good whether the bottle has been on the shelf a week or three months.

He explained the evolution of flavor to Jeff at Beervana a last year.

“If you take Wanderlust as an example, the first fifteen days is all Mosaic and then it goes through this adolescence and between day 15 and 30 and what’s happening is this weird interference with Mosaic dropping out, but around day 30 the Amarillo starts to come forward and it becomes this new beer around day 30. When you have that beer from day 30 to 45, it has a little bit of tropical dankness, but essentially all that Mosaic character is gone and it becomes more bright, citrus peel, marmalade. I like to think how a hoppy beer is going to last on a shelf, and I don’t mind it going through this evolution.” 

So Hops Direct’s 2015 whole leaf crop went on sale today and they were already sold out of Amarillo before the crop even went on sale. That kind of pisses me off. I understand hop contrast, but WTF! I mean Citra wasn’t even sold out. Yes, Amarillo is a proprietary hop and it was a rough year for the hop growing region, but I read several reports that said the crop of Amarillo was doing fine this year.

Looks like I’m holding on to the bit that I have left from the 2014 crop. I’m planning on brewing an India Brown for my club’s competition in early 2016. It calls for a bunch of Amarillo and I barely have enough for it. 

Since I was home alone for Christmas I decided to brew. I woke up early and it was kind of like Christmas when I was younger. Except I don't know how excited I would have been about 15 gallons of 170 degree water when I was a kid. Dr. Pasteur did come and check to make sure I had everything setup correctly. 

I brewed a 10 gallon batch of my India Brown. There was a moment where I really hoped that I did my math right and it turns out I did. I was able to get all of the grain in the mash tun, but just barely. 

I don't normally use hop bags, but with this batch I did. It called for 12 ounces of hops which is could clog the filters in my kettle. It's all Amarillo with 

2 oz @ 60

2.5 oz @ 30

3.5 oz @ 5

4 oz @ 0

I think the chocolate and citrus work really well together. 

With using that many hops I did have to increase my volume a bit to account for the amount the hops would absorb. Since I always want an extra gallon in my kettle I started with a volume of around 13.5 gallons. When adding in the extra for the hops it was almost 14 gallons. That is by far the most I have ever had in my kettle. 

I did have to use WYeast 1056 as my new home brew store doesn't normally stock White Labs. I'll have to see about finding it because I'm just a fan of White Labs.