Suggestions for recipes during hop shortage
 

Haven't seen this kind of thread posted anywhere. I have a new chest freezer conversion ripe to be filled with good beer and with the hop shortage I'm looking for suggestions. Any ideas?

Scottish Ales.

+1.

I use Pacific Gem in my Scottish with a little EKG. Pacific Gem are available and I just got some EKG today, so it must be available off and on.

Must agree with Scottish ales
99% pale
1% roasted barley

Hopped like you are reallllllllllllllllllllllllllly cheap:ban: :D

Scottish and Irish ales, English Brown ales, German lagers, lower OG or sweeter Porters and Stouts, hefeweizens, wits and many other Belgians, Northern German altbier and (to some extent) Dusseldorf alts, Koelsches, blond and cream ales, and all the hops alternatives (smoked malts and spice/herb/vegetable beers).

For the most part, just avoid the big, hoppy, "American" styles, and you are in pretty good shape.


TL

I agree with Texlaw. There are a ton of styles you can brew effectively without making hop bombs. I've seen some great brewers do beers where there was only one small hop addition 15 minutes into the boil. Changing up when you add your hops will change utilization, which can have a huge affect on taste and aroma. The taste of your beers is as much determined by the malt profile as the hop profile. Also, I'm reading Brew Like a Monk, and there was a whole write up in the America section where brewers are talking about affecting the tastes of their beers by doing different things with the yeasts, fermentation temperatures, blending yeasts etc.

It's probably kind of hard to keep track of some of that stuff with the yeast in a non-lab environment, but it's worth exploring some of these things. 150 years ago brewmasters were working with far less scientific data than we do nowadays in a kitchen or backyard brewhouse.

Brew Your Own, March-April, has a "Hop Survival Guide".

Sours. The Flanders I did recently had 12 IBU.

Do you mean in addition to the standard 60m bittering addition or as the sole hop addition?

I think not only what has been said above, but also using some less known or less comon varieties that will still be out there. I do not forsee having a complete loss of hops..just all of the most common and used hops. Some of the bittering hops will always be available..so think about these for your brews..

Jay