Anyone ever used 100% Columbus hops?

I am interested to hear from anyone who has ever done a smash with Columbus hops or just made a recipe that uses them late in the boil as well as dry hopped.

I have been playing with an Amber recipe for weeks and keep changing the hops around. I am now thinking about using Columbus at 60min, 20min, and 10min. Then combining Columbus, Centennial, & Cascade at around 3 mins and dry hopped.

I made an Amherst Anniversary Ale Clone (from BYO 250 clone recipies):

11.9 lbs Pale Ale Malt
1.16 lbs Carafoam
1.16 lbs light crystal
.58 lbs melanoiden malt

.4 oz Columbus hops (60 min)
.87 oz Columbus hops (45 min)
.75 oz Columbus hops (5 min)
1 oz Columbus hops (0 min)

California Ale Yeast

I dry hopped with 2 oz of Simcoe just to mix it up, but you could easily dry hop with anything else. Have fun!

Well how was it?!?!? Did you like what Columbus did for the beer?

It turned out really well!! I felt that it worked well in an IPA. Paired well with simcoe too. Very smooth tasting and bittering. I would have like to dry hop with it too, to get the full characteristics, but it was nice the way it was.

I have a batch of EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale clearing up in primary. It calls for all cascade hops. Obviously I can't really say how the final product will taste yet, but from the hydrometer samples I've pulled it tastes quite good. Right now I would compare the flavor to Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale. Citrus flavor with a nice bite from the portion I used for bittering. Still very green right now, so I'll post final tasting results on this page https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/ after it has been in the bottle for a month or so.

I have not used them 100% But the IPA's in my sig both used them throughout the boil in conjunction with Cascade.

The result is favorable. It is a dual-purpose hop.

trevorc13 said:

It turned out really well!! I felt that it worked well in an IPA. Paired well with simcoe too. Very smooth tasting and bittering. I would have like to dry hop with it too, to get the full characteristics, but it was nice the way it was.

Click to expand...

I have about a half a keg left of the Amherst Clone, came out well but was expecting more of a pale ale when I brewed it. Tastes more like an IPA.

I used 100% columbus in a 2nd runnings beer, sort of a session pale, 1.034 gravity ~34 ibus and was quite nice and refreshing.

I'm just finishing up a keg of Columbus IPA. It's all Columbus throughout the boil and then I decided to do a dry hop with Cascade (not in the recipe) since I like to dry hop my IPA's. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. Like trevor said...pretty smooth. It paired well with the Cascade.

I have 4lbs of vacume packed whole columbus in the freezer I got off ebay a while back I'v been wanting to do something with.
Do they have very much of a citrus taste?

rod734 said:

I have 4lbs of vacume packed whole columbus in the freezer I got off ebay a while back I'v been wanting to do something with.
Do they have very much of a citrus taste?

Click to expand...

Some citrus. But Pine/Resin is the overlying note.

rod734 said:

I have 4lbs of vacume packed whole columbus in the freezer I got off ebay a while back I'v been wanting to do something with.
Do they have very much of a citrus taste?

Click to expand...

Not as much as Cascade or Citra IMHO.

BryceL said:

I'm just finishing up a keg of Columbus IPA. It's all Columbus throughout the boil and then I decided to do a dry hop with Cascade (not in the recipe) since I like to dry hop my IPA's. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. Like trevor said...pretty smooth. It paired well with the Cascade.

Click to expand...

I'm going to do that exact beer. Picked up the Columbus Kit with that same recipe (Norther California LHBS with initials of MB) and thought I'd experiment.

1) Dry Hop 1 oz. of Columbus
2) Dry Hop 1 oz. of Cascade

I've heard lots of good things about Centennial & Simcoe. (Can you say Pliny?)

I found it quite mellow. I figured I would get this dank/resin type aroma but it was rather subdued.

trevorc13 said:

I made an Amherst Anniversary Ale Clone (from BYO 250 clone recipies):

11.9 lbs Pale Ale Malt
1.16 lbs Carafoam
1.16 lbs light crystal
.58 lbs melanoiden malt

.4 oz Columbus hops (60 min)
.87 oz Columbus hops (45 min)
.75 oz Columbus hops (5 min)
1 oz Columbus hops (0 min)

California Ale Yeast

I dry hopped with 2 oz of Simcoe just to mix it up, but you could easily dry hop with anything else. Have fun!

Click to expand...

Funny, I brewed that same beer and it came out well. Since then, I have become very good friends with the folks at ABC. Namely the owner and brewers. That is NOT how they make their Anniversary Ale, nor does it taste anything like it. Though, it is a great beer. Both beers I mean, the "clone" and the real deal. Even won their brew comp this year and we brewed a 7bbl batch that they served on TAP.