Pacific Gem hops???

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ajbram

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Planning on making a SMaSH using Vienna Malt and Pacific gem hops. Thinking that the reported woody bitterness and blackberry/currant notes would be nice in a SMaSH. Anyone have any experience with Pacific Gem?

Cheers!
 
I haven't used them exclusively in beer, but I did bitter with them followed up with Nelson Sauvin hops (aroma/flavor) for a New Zealand pale ale. I wasn't a fan of Pacific Gem for bittering, I felt that it gave it some odd undertones that were absent when I brewed the same beer with Magnum for bittering. After that, I stopped using them, so I can't provide anything constructive for flavor/aroma properties.
 
Did you do it?

I'll be making a (T)MaSH in November, using 2 row and malted wheat. Planning on using the PG at 20 minutes only. The idea is to get the best of all 3 worlds and really capture that blackberry escence.
 
i had a SMaSH munich and pacific gem homebrew, in which the brewer also did a bunch of kettle carmelization...OMG! I am doing this beer next! Soooo good, wasn't a hop bomb, but very subtle, and delicious......
 
PacGem is probably my least favorite hop. I've had two SMaSH beers with it, and they were both unpleasant to the point of being undrinkable. I can see it being used as an accent hop, maybe to increase the tannic character of Nelson Sauvin, but not as the feature or even sole hop in a beer. Containing up to 40% (!) cohumulone, I'd definitely not use it for bittering.
 
I've got a big load of NZ hops from midwest,& was going to use the PG as flavor/aroma hops at 20 minutes. Or even 10 minutes with another hop. I def think flavor/aroma additions with this one. I thought the berry thing sounded good too. It'll be going into a pale ale.
 
I use it in a double IPA that I like a lot. I use to be able to find it in bulk (1 lb at a time) but I have a hard time just fining it at all now. I think the last place I got it was at Farmhouse. Anybody know a good source?
 
I Did it! and it is fantastic... probably the best beer I have made so far... 45IBU makes it hoppy, but not very bitter...Subtle oak barrel dry bitterness with a pronounces berry note atthe finish and very crisp... Will be brewing this again!
 
Horrible, horrible hop. The written descriptions make it sound enticing, but it's really an unpleasant hop. Yeah, it has some berry notes, but they're harsh. Not recommended.
 
Although I have yet to try them, I have 4 oz waiting to be used. I appreciate your opinion, but my since everyone's palette is different I still am going to make something with them; I was thinking an English style pale ale with all late additions of Pacific Gem.
 
Of course you gotta try yourself, just thought I'd chime in as I HATE them. I think they're not appropriate for aroma or flavor additions but work fine for bittering. Anyway, have at it. Who knows, maybe you'll like them.
 
Hop schedule was 0.5 oz. at each of 60, 13, 5, and 0 minutes.

Matt, maybe you got some nasty bad hops, or maybe they don't agree with Croatian water chemistry, because the beer I made with these was delicious. I have made 2 batches of this and it has been the favourite of my beer snob friends. Very clean, some toasted oak dryness notes to the bittering, subtle blackberry finish. I strongly recommend doing this with some vienna or pils malt as the fruitiness really accentuates the berry notes. I used Kolsch yeast too...

I dunno man, this is in my permanent rotation now and it disappears really quickly.
 
Hop schedule was 0.5 oz. at each of 60, 13, 5, and 0 minutes.

Matt, maybe you got some nasty bad hops, or maybe they don't agree with Croatian water chemistry, because the beer I made with these was delicious. I have made 2 batches of this and it has been the favourite of my beer snob friends. Very clean, some toasted oak dryness notes to the bittering, subtle blackberry finish. I strongly recommend doing this with some vienna or pils malt as the fruitiness really accentuates the berry notes. I used Kolsch yeast too...

I dunno man, this is in my permanent rotation now and it disappears really quickly.

Hmmm,I was going to brew a partial mash version of my sunset gold APA with pacific gem & one of the other NZ hops I have a pound of. I liked the idea of the oak & Berry together. I bought like 3oz each of some 5 varieties of NZ hops when midwest had'em on sale.
 
Hmmm,I was going to brew a partial mash version of my sunset gold APA with pacific gem & one of the other NZ hops I have a pound of. I liked the idea of the oak & Berry together. I bought like 3oz each of some 5 varieties of NZ hops when midwest had'em on sale.

Sounds tasty! I love me some NZ hops!
 
So far the grain bill looks like;
2lb rahr 2-row
2lb marris otter (crisp)
.5lb crystal 20L
.5lb carapils
3.3lb gold LME
Pacific gem & one othe NZ hop at 20 & 10 minutes. Gotta look at the profiles of the ones I have to figure which will go well with the pacific gem. I got an ounce of Saaz & US Fuggle that might be interesting for a smooth bittering.
 
Hop schedule was 0.5 oz. at each of 60, 13, 5, and 0 minutes.

Matt, maybe you got some nasty bad hops, or maybe they don't agree with Croatian water chemistry, because the beer I made with these was delicious. I have made 2 batches of this and it has been the favourite of my beer snob friends. Very clean, some toasted oak dryness notes to the bittering, subtle blackberry finish. I strongly recommend doing this with some vienna or pils malt as the fruitiness really accentuates the berry notes. I used Kolsch yeast too...

I dunno man, this is in my permanent rotation now and it disappears really quickly.

I doubt it. If you Google around you'll see a fair amount of people complaining about these hops. I'm not even the only one in this thread. I adjusted the water, though I'd have to look it up. They worked great for bittering, but they had a really unpleasant pungent character.

Different strokes.
 
I like it as a bittering and accent hop for EIPAs, porters and stouts. I used it as a VERY light late addition in a mild and that worked as well.

I don't think that it would work well as a showcase hop, but if you've got the itch, might as well scratch it.
 
All I can say is I used it as I mentioned earlier and I really like it. I'm also not the only one who has really liked this recipe. Matt, as a researcher who studies water I can tell you there is a lot more going on with water chemistry than what we typically pay attention to as brewers. My suspicion is that a lot of what people perceive as far as different hop aromas/flavours comes down to interactions between hops and water in the boil. Maybe I'm just in an area that it works for me. I order my NZ hops from hopshack.com if it helps.
 
Some folks must have hard water that changes how we percieve hop flavors & aromas. We have soft water that's worked real well so far.
 
All I can say is I used it as I mentioned earlier and I really like it. I'm also not the only one who has really liked this recipe. Matt, as a researcher who studies water I can tell you there is a lot more going on with water chemistry than what we typically pay attention to as brewers. My suspicion is that a lot of what people perceive as far as different hop aromas/flavours comes down to interactions between hops and water in the boil. Maybe I'm just in an area that it works for me. I order my NZ hops from hopshack.com if it helps.

I am totally uninterested in trying this hop again, so won't be ordering it. From NZ, I love Nelson Sauvin, which some other people hate as well. There are tons and tons of other hops I love. I see no reason to try the only hop that I hate again. It'd be a total waste of time and effort.

I don't think it's interaction with the water. When I used it, it had a very harsh, pungent Black Currant or other berry note that was totally unpleasant. The bittering is fine, it's the flavor and aroma that I don't like.

Anyway, the water was adjusted with 62% distilled water and various salts added to achieve this:

Ca 111
Mg 25
Na 3
Chloride 95
Sulfate 138
Alkalinity 120
RA 27
Chloride to Sulfate ratio .68 bitter.

It's not an overly harsh water for an APA. I've made dozens of APAs using similar water with many, many other hops and had no such problem.

Anyway, I'm not interested in being convinced that I am wrong on something that is clearly a matter of personal preference. I hate this hop and will never use it again. The original post asked what people thought of this hop, so I chimed in. I am not trying to convince you that you are wrong. If you like it, that's fine. I hate it. And I'm not alone. If I had read reactions like mine before I used it, I likely would have selected another hop and wouldn't have wasted my time.
 
I'll soon find out if I like them or not. Making a hop forward wheat beer using Pacif Gem only. Doing a small batch, but it'll be the equivelent of 1.3 oz as 20 minutes and 1.3 oz dry hopped. Only about 40 IBU, but the hop taste and arroma will be very aggressive.
 
I am totally uninterested in trying this hop again, so won't be ordering it. From NZ, I love Nelson Sauvin, which some other people hate as well. There are tons and tons of other hops I love. I see no reason to try the only hop that I hate again. It'd be a total waste of time and effort.

I don't think it's interaction with the water. When I used it, it had a very harsh, pungent Black Currant or other berry note that was totally unpleasant. The bittering is fine, it's the flavor and aroma that I don't like.

Anyway, the water was adjusted with 62% distilled water and various salts added to achieve this:

Ca 111
Mg 25
Na 3
Chloride 95
Sulfate 138
Alkalinity 120
RA 27
Chloride to Sulfate ratio .68 bitter.

It's not an overly harsh water for an APA. I've made dozens of APAs using similar water with many, many other hops and had no such problem.

Anyway, I'm not interested in being convinced that I am wrong on something that is clearly a matter of personal preference. I hate this hop and will never use it again. The original post asked what people thought of this hop, so I chimed in. I am not trying to convince you that you are wrong. If you like it, that's fine. I hate it. And I'm not alone. If I had read reactions like mine before I used it, I likely would have selected another hop and wouldn't have wasted my time.

Like I said, there are literally thousands of other ions that could be affecting your water chemistry that we as brewers do not even consider. Many of these things are not removed by distillation and many cannot be measured without some very expensive instruments. I'm not trying to convince you you are wrong, because it is a matter of preference and if the hop hasn't worked for you, there could be a million reasons. Similarly there could be a million reasons that it worked really well for me. As the original poster, I must point out that I did my homework and saw mixed reviews, but since this is a relatively new hop variety, I thought I would see if anyone had used it recently and what they thought. As you can see, there were mixed reviews again, so I decided the worst that could happen is I spoil $15 worth of grains and yeast. Not a big deal. Had I read comments like yours earlier, maybe I wouldn't have tried it and I would have deprived myself and my friends of a very tasty beer. You have made your point. You are entitled to your opinion, so I don't see why you feel the need to take offence or assume that we are trying to convince you otherwise. No need to be argumentative, so RDWHAHB. For me, the results speak for themselves though. At parties and homebrew club meetings, this always receives high praise and disappears quickly with requests for more.

:mug:
 
I'll soon find out if I like them or not. Making a hop forward wheat beer using Pacif Gem only. Doing a small batch, but it'll be the equivelent of 1.3 oz as 20 minutes and 1.3 oz dry hopped. Only about 40 IBU, but the hop taste and arroma will be very aggressive.

Sounds like a good experiment Hal, let me know how it turns out!
 
Maybe the water profile is pushing towars hard water favoring other hops. but easily pushes pacific gem into harsh territory?
 
I'm in a high limestone area here, and our tap water receives minimal treatment so is pretty hard, but Pac Gem was pretty tasty.
 
I saw this at my lhbs the other day. I couldn't get Citra and they tried to sub me some simcoe (which I already had at home) or the bag of pacific gem they had just gotten from their purveyor. It smelled beautiful in the Mylar bag I shoulda grabbed some.
 
Just brewed another batch of this. I should point out that I use this with Weyermann Vienna malt, which is a nice fruity malt. Perhaps The berry notes and oaky bitterness are best with a fruitier malt and not so nice with a different grain bill? I dunno, but this continues to be one tasty brew!
 
Well dang. On brew day last Saturday,I pulled out an ounce of pacifica instead of pacific gem. Oops. Oh well,pacifica is supposed to taste like orange marmalade with som floral. With the 14g of rehydrated Cooper's ale yeast,it could be tasty.
 
Well dang. On brew day last Saturday,I pulled out an ounce of pacifica instead of pacific gem. Oops. Oh well,pacifica is supposed to taste like orangwe marmalde with som floral. With the 14g of rehydrated Cooper's ale yeast,it could be tasty.

let me know how it turns out!
 
I have a thread in the beginner's forum "PM take 2". I'll post it there. I bittered it with .5oz NZ super alpha hop,which smelled herbal lemon toned with lime. NZ Motueka @ 20 minutes,pacifica @ 10 minutes. The motueka has a very nice bright hrbal smell to it. Kinda reminds me of herbed lemon chicken. We'll find out next month. Still gotta get the last of the pm cascade pale ale in the fridge so I can get pics. Not to mention some new Brewvision videos...
 

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