Using American Hops: Tips from the Pros
American hops are unique. Consider, for example, the aromatic, floral and citrus qualities of Cascade and Centennial. Other American hops are hybrids of their European cousins and are able to convey similar characteristics to your beer. Why use American hops? The reasons are many, but here’s the simplest — to make some great beer. Try making sample batches where the only thing you change is the hops. Run a series of blind tastings and see which hops please your palate.
Brewer: Tom Munoz, Far West Ireland Brewery in Redmond, WA
What makes American hops different from, say, European hops is the fact that they have been genetically isolated over the centuries. Sure, natural crossover with transplanted European hops is inevitable and there has certainly been spontaneous crossbreeding in the wild. But America, nonetheless, produces hops that other parts of the world do not.
Some American hop examples include Chinook, Cluster, Galena, Horizon and Nugget. These are
all high alpha hops. Columbus, Millennium, Warrior and Zeus are considered super high alpha hops. Cascade, Fuggle, Liberty, Mount Hood, Perle, Santiam, Sterling, Vanguard and Willamette, like German and Czech hops, have specific characters that result in great, indigenous beers.
American hops have contributed to definitive qualities in the craft beer movement. One big difference is that American hops are spicier than other hop varieties and this is one reason I like using them.
Cascade is the classic American hop. It’s a good hop that is versatile. It has the perfect level of essential oils, allowing it to lend excellent flavor and aroma to almost any beer style.
A malt combination that works well with Cascade is this: Munich, a bit of caramel, and some Biscuit malt. It creates something like a Bass or a Whitbread in terms of flavor.
Willamette is another well-known American hop. I consider it a seedless Fuggle, though Willamette is more flavorful and spicy. It is definitely a finishing hop. In fact, USA Hops describe it as a “quality aroma hop” with a mild, pleasant and slightly spicy aroma.
There are all kinds of exciting, lesser-known American hops on the brewing scene. One of them is Crystal, a wonderful hop that usually has about 2.5–4.5% alpha acids. It is grown as an American substitute to Hallertauer Mittelfrueh and has a mild and pleasant aroma. It is also substituted for Mt. Hood and Liberty hops.
Mt. Hood falls into the 5–8% alpha acid range with an aroma often described as pleasant, clean, and light. Liberty is a 3–5% alpha acid hop and is also considered a mild and pleasant aroma hop.
Crystal was primarily developed and grown in Oregon. It was released about seven years ago. John Maier at Rogue was one of the first to really use it. He made the “Brutal Bitter,” which featured 100% Crystal hops. I would describe the flavor as nice, mild and noble. It can be used for lagers, but we use it mostly when brewing ales.
Brewer: John Campbell, Lang Creek Brewery in Marion, MT
There are no secrets in brewing. If you taste a beer you like and want to reproduce it, you’ll be successful with a little bit of trial and error. Hops are one of the ingredients that you’ll experiment with the most.
Centennial is my favorite American hop, though Cascade comes in a close second. I use Centennial for bittering and dry hopping. I find it gives sort of a grapefruit taste and, even when you use it only for bittering, some of this quality finds its way to the finished beer. Centennial is best when used as a
bittering hop.
Our IPA and pale ale reflect how strongly we feel about this – our hop schedule with both is Centennial for bittering, Mt. Hood for flavor and Cascade for aroma. Centennial is a 9.5–11.5% alpha acid hop, and is usually described as having medium flower and citrus notes. It’s mostly used as an aromatic but its high alpha content makes it suitable for bittering.
Our signature beer is the Trimotor Amber, an English amber ale. We went through a number of different hops in the process of deciding which we liked best — it was, after all, our first production beer and we wanted to make sure we did it right. We finally got the nose we were looking for with Willamette. This is typically an aroma hop and it suited our needs perfectly.
Eventually, however, we found that the hop character was slightly more pronounced with English Fuggles. The Fuggle aroma is usually described as spicy, soft and woody.
In sample brews, but never in production, we have tried Columbus hops when Centennial wasn’t available. This is a bittering hop of recent origin and is classified as a super alpha hop. With alpha acids between 14–18%, it is gaining acceptance as a world-class bittering hop. The sample brews we made with Columbus turned out to our satisfaction — we only noticed a minimal difference from Centennial in the bitterness levels.
When we were trying to create a blonde ale, we tried lots of samples and eventually selected Liberty hops. This isn’t a very bold hop. It’s from the German Hallertauer variety with alpha acids between 3.5–6.5%. The aroma character of it is, in fact, very similar to the Hallertauer Mittelfrueh. We use it as a mid-addition hop.
