No Simcoe?

I was at the LHBS during lunch to pick up some brewing supplies for this week. I was hoping to brew a nice simple (inexpensive) house pale ale:

6lbs DME
.5oz Crystal 40
.5oz Carapils
Safale US-05

I've heard raves about the simcoe/amarillo/cascade combination so those were the planned hops. When I got to the LHBS the guy laughed and said "unless you're working at a brewery you can't get your hands on any simcoe".

So I asked for magnum...no magnum...then millennium...no millennium. To cut the trend short I just asked what he had in stock that would go well with the cascade/amarillo combination and he suggested centennial. I've never used centennial before, so I'm not sure how the flavor profile will change. Actually I never used simcoe before either - I was just hoping to try it from rave reviews I read on this site.

Anyway, I guess this is all to say I didn't realize how hard it would be to get my hands on particular hope varieties.

Midwest and Austin both have Simcoe pellets in stock.

Hop Availability Chart - Brew365

Austin Homebrew Supply

or

Simcoe Hop Pellets - 1 oz. :: Midwest Supplies Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies

Ah, looks like I should have checked the internet first.

I like the concept of supporting the local guy, but for some of these hop varieties I guess I'm going to need to look to the internet.

simcoe's great... but as is centennial... in short, centennial is a super charged "cascade." So, you'll get plenty of citrus, grapefruit goodness...

I only purchased an ounce of each, so I'm thinking about the hop schedule.
Originally I was thinking something along the lines of

1oz centennial 60 min
.5oz amarillo 15 min
.5oz cascase 5 min

and then dry hop with .5oz amarillo and .5oz cascade. But now that I think about it - is there a benefit to mixing it up a little more and spreading the centennial out or preserving some of it for dry hoping?

jrhammonds said:

simcoe's great... but as is centennial... in short, centennial is a super charged "cascade." So, you'll get plenty of citrus, grapefruit goodness...

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Don't you mean Amarillo is a supercharged cascade?

I think Centennial is great... For what may become my house IPA I use Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo, with the Centennial pulling double duty as bittering and flavor hops, the amarillo doing flavor and dry hop, and the simcoe going for just dry hopping.

I know that my LHBS is almost out of Centennial, though. He actually had only 1 pound left when I got there, and I am thankful for it, otherwise I couldnt brew tonight... But a lot of the high alpha hops are in short supply, so grab them when you can. Centennial has a great grapefruit nose and flavor, and it will do well with the amarillo and cascade.

Tankard said:

Don't you mean Amarillo is a supercharged cascade?

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Centennial is a super-charged Cascade... I am not sure if Amarillo is as well...

If you have your heart set on Simcoe, there isn't anything that can replace it. DFH 60 min IPA and Stone Vertical 08.08.08 both use simcoe and it's a distincly wonderful flavor.

Love me some Simcoe's.

Tankard said:

Don't you mean Amarillo is a supercharged cascade?

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no. it's centennial.

NORTHERN BREWER: Leaf Hops

I just brewed a pale ale with Simcoe as bittering, flavor and aroma. It was the only hop using the the beer and the beer tastes like clementine oranges.

Oh man, all of these posts make me really wish I had simcoe hops.

I think I'll order some online and make another Pale Ale like Tonedef131 did. And in the mean time I'll try and find a good micro with simcoe to get a taste for this variety. I know Weyerbacher makes their Double Simcoe IPA.

In the mean time I'll also brew my non-simcoe pale ale to have something to drink while I wait.

Centennial/Amarillo/Cascade will make a fine beer. But it ain't Simcoe, if you wanted Simcoe.

I bought a pile of hops online so I can brew what I want when I want it, and saved a bit by buying the hops I use a lot by the pound. The only hops I want I couldn't find so far are Magnum and Summit. I want to do a Summit SMaSH IPA with Vienna malt.... yummy tangerine citrus.

Tankard said:

Don't you mean Amarillo is a supercharged cascade?

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Amarillo is a very distinctly pineappley flavor. Centennial is very grapefruity, like Cascade is. Summit is so wildly tangerine that I can't believe it's a hop, sometimes.
Amarillo complements Cascade nicely, but it is not nearly the same flavor, while Centennial is much closer.