Delta Force!

On a goof, I decided to brew a simple extract beer to see what Delta hops bring to the table. Using bags of DME I had lying around, I'm brewing this:

3 lb Briess Amber DME (late addition)
2 lb Briess Golden Light DME

1 oz Delta Whole @ 6.5% AA - 60 min
1 oz Delta Whole @ 6.5% AA - Flameout

OG 1044
IBU 24

Yeast - S-05

Nope, no specialty grains, none of that. DME only.

Pot is coming to the boil now. We'll see!

Cheers,

Bob

My LHBS was brewing with Delta last time I was there...obviously tough to tell pre-fermentation, but the smell was phenomenal. Simple recipe like yours, 100% pale ale malt or something.

Looking forward to your results.

I will post them here. The aroma is really good; like a blend of citrusy American "C" hops and earthy, spicy English varieties. I'm excited!

Bob

Cooled and pitched.

Who wants to tell me how wrong I am with my expectations?

From the look of the wort (star-bright) and the smell (farking splendid) and the taste (nomnomNOM) I think I might be in for a treat. Dead simple and tasty. I'll let you know what the gravity sample tastes like. If I like it I'll put it into regular rotation. I've been looking for a dead-simple recipe I can knock together in a couple of hours when the pipeline is running low. I'd've just done a SMaSH, but mashing even 3-5 gallons takes all damn day. This took about 2 hours from start to finish.

Can you tell I'm a bit excited? This is the first time I've not obsessed over what's going into my kettle in YEARS!

Seriously, feedback is good. Let me know what you think, all!

Bob

I very recently did a special bitter recipe with delta hops. It was good. I don't know about nomnomnom good though. I didn't give the beer enough fermentation time and it picked up about .5 vol in the bottle from the SO4 that I didn't calculate for. I only bottled for 1.5vol. Anyhow the hops were nice I used delta for flavor and aroma (in low quantities mind you). The beer has a nice toasty malt backbone with a balanced citrusy earthy hop quality. I only have 3 bottles left from the 4 cases I bottled up just before the Superbowl. Hell we (I mostly) drank three 2L growlers of it Superbowl night.

Bottled just now. Beer finished at 1.009. Yielded more than I expected; ~5.5 gallons in the bottling bucket. Didn't clean that many swing-tops, so the rest is sitting here next to me in a pitcher.

Color is just on the amber side of golden, though the beer is more turbid than I'd like.

Flavor is pretty good, better than I expected for an extract-only beer. The Delta provided a strong bitterness that lasts and lasts - more than I expected from the calculation. There's just enough residual sweetness and malt flavor to balance up front, then finishing with a resounding bitterness at the back. That's what I expect from Special/Best/Premium Bitter, which is the style I was shooting for.

Unfortunately, I got no hops aroma at all. It's as though I needn't have bothered with the flameout addition. Maybe that'll change when the beer conditions and the devolving CO2 brings hops notes to my nose. But I can't detect any flavor either, so I am not sanguine.

Still, I can tell it's a keeper for my stable, if only because it surprised me with its goodness and it's easy to brew as eating pancakes. Next time with the following tweaks:

1. Secondary with 1 oz at least of Delta for dry hops
2. Ditto for gelatin to promote clarity. I forgot how poorly S-05 settles.

When the beer conditions fully and the flavor matures, I'll post my findings. Hopefully I can get it before an unbiased judge or two for their thoughts.

Now imma go post more while I finish this pitcher. Watch out for drucken posting!

Cheers!

Bob