How Many Hop Varieties Are in the Best IPAs?

How Many Hop Varieties Are in the Best IPAs? - A Statistical Analysis

An interesting read for hop heads.

I'm not a hop head or great lover of IPAs. But I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night...

The last couple days I've been transcribing my recipes out of BrewPal so that I have hard copies of everything. The thing I have noticed while going through them is the better ones are the simpler ones: 3 or 4 different grains and 1 to 3 hops varieties. There are a couple exception, like my hazelnut sweet stout, but the rest fit that mold.

Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA has 6 hop varieties in it. These new generation IPA's are really pretty good. Def a nice change. http://www.samueladams.com/craft-beers/latitude-48-ipa
I used many hops like those in my Cougar Country IPA in the FV now. 2 weeks in this Sunday. Can't wait to taste the gravity sample!...

The DCA (Black IPA - I hate this name) I just kegged.

I used 2 hops in the boil; CTZ and Cascade.

I dry hopped with 6 hops; CTZ, Amarillo, Centennial, Mosaic, Simcoe & Zythos.

I'd be very interested to hear what you guys shoot for when formulating your IPA hop combos. Do you hope to get a specific character out of that combination? A general hop range, like dank + pine; fruity + dank; citrus + floral? Do you hope they add up to some essence of each, or combine to form something greater than their parts?

Thanks for checking out the blog!

othellomcbane said:

Thanks for checking out the blog!

Click to expand...

Cool, didn't see it from your sig. Picked it up from The New School: Dedicated to Craft Beer's Facebook page today.

Personally, I try to keep it simple. Generally 2-3 varieties but sometimes a 4th for bittering. I always make sure to have at least one "light" element and one "heavy". So, citrus/floral/fruity with piney/dank/earthy. I lean one way or the other depending on season.

42.

No, it hasn't been done yet.
So the "best IPA" is clearly Still Out There...

Cheers!

At his NHC talk, Mitch Steele said they were using more hop varieties to hedge against crop shortages. Seems there's more than one way to hop the same IPA.

HOP 42 - the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Shoot - what was the question again?