Single Hop Challenge!

If you were to brew a pale or amber and wanted to restrict yourself to just one hop for all of your additions, and you wanted to brew something you would really enjoy drinking, which hop would you choose?

Rhoobarb said:

If you were to brew a pale or amber and wanted to restrict yourself to just one hop for all of your additions, and you wanted to brew something you would really enjoy drinking, which hop would you choose?

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I would choose cascade, I am big on aroma and have had good luck with this one

An amber, I'd go with Mt. Hood (not listed!). A pale, I'd go with Cascade, hands down.

I went with Columbus. It's a massive hop....like a high alpha Cascade. Very clean bittering, and can be used for flavor/aroma in small doses. A little would go a long way!

Man, now you're giving me ideas......

Fuggle..the runner up to Cascade but also the backup.

cascade baby! i could eat that stuff on my cereal, add it to my cofee, my gumbo......

ORRELSE said:

An amber, I'd go with Mt. Hood (not listed!). ...

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Yes, I would've added Mt. Hood, but 10 items is the limit on a poll.

If anyone has an alternate choice not listed above, feel free to mention it.

DeRoux's Broux said:

cascade baby! i could eat that stuff on my cereal, add it to my cofee, my gumbo......

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Me too man...Cascade rules. My other faves are Northern Brewer and Mt. Hood. I happen to be growing the latter 2 so hopefull I'll have a beer soon that I can use my own home-grown hops too.

ekg... i love how it works as a bittering hop, not too strong, and i love the flavor.. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

I've recently noticed EKGs being hard to find fresh. Freshops doesn't offer them right now and all I can find on the Net is pellets. Has anyone heard anything? Was there a shallow crop this past season?

i used fresh US Goldings in my Irish Red ale. no word on the EKG though......i figure fresher is better, so i went with USG rather than pellet EKG.

orrelse, a guy in my HBC has some cascade and liberty growing down the fence by his pool and hot tub. pretty damn cool. he uses them for dry hops because he has no way to figure AAU's......still cool.

DeRoux's Broux said:

orrelse, a guy in my HBC has some cascade and liberty growing down the fence by his pool and hot tub. pretty damn cool. he uses them for dry hops because he has no way to figure AAU's......still cool.

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Yeah, that's the only bad part abotu growing your own. I really can't dry hop with Mt. Hood or Northern Brewer. If i still live here next summer I'm gonna grow some Cascades and probably Amarillo. It so hard to find that heck, I'd love to always have some on hand when I can't get them from a store.

That reminds me I need to find the rhizomes thread and post some recent pics of the hops....

I have tried the new santiam hops in three brews. Lookin good guys.

Cascade is a truely great all around hop. I buy Cascade pellets by the pound. But I have to say I have never put it on my breakfast cereal. Hallertau is my second favorite hop. I use Northern Brewer as a bittering hop is alot of recipes too.

It looks like Cascade is the clear winner, indeed! I've never used Northern Brewer. May have to pick some up.

I went with Centennial. It's somewhere between Columbus and Cascade. Pretty high alpha so it can be a good bittering hop, but it has great aroma and flavor character too.

I can see why everyone says Cascade, since it's the most oft-used aroma/flavor hop, but I'd have to add to much for bittering. I like a bitter bite in my beers, and usuall use Cascade.

Fuggle would be a good choice for a more polite English ale that isn't too bitter.

Interesting poll.

Im gonna go for Goldings because I live in Southern UK. It has excellent bittering properties already despite being a relatively low AA hop strain. The aroma is very satisfying and does a good job at covering the malty smells with hoppy aromas during the boil if the right amount is used.