7 diff hops in a WC IPA... Too much?

I Am 7 days into a West Coast IPA ferm. Brewed w/6 oz of hops and just dry hopped w 2oz. Hops used: Simcoe, Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, Columbus, Chinook & Willamette. Mixed all hops together and threw in 1oz & 2oz at diff intervals bursting the last oz for the last 15 minutes and dry hopping 2oz today. Now I know 8oz isn't overhopping but do I have too many diff hop flavors competing?cutious what people think..

Gracias...

Its a west coast IPA the whole idea is to go overboard.

your mix isn't too different than 7-C's

For me, yeah, that's more varietals than I'd go with. I've found that too many hop types end up tasting just hoppy, instead of differing hop characters. I like sticking with 2-3 types to allow them to come across in the finished beer.

However, you may find that your beer tastes excellent and screams of over the top hop flavor and aroma, and that is what it's about anyway.

I made an IIPA recently with this hop schedule-minus centennial and cascade-using 6oz in the boil and 7ozs as dry hop.

I have to agree that the beer was damned hoppy, but the flavors were muddled.

It's tough bringing balance to something so imbalanced, such as an IPA.

I'd love to hear what others have to say; I love hoppy hoppy beers but haven't made a truly outstanding hoppy beer yet.

If it makes you feel any better, I just hop bursted a 1.066 IPA a few days ago with 9.5 oz (total) of falconers, cascade, zythos, Willamette and summit. All in the last 20 mins starting with low alpha and working up to the highest at F.O. Smells great. Judging solely by smell its the hoppy beer I've been looking for. Just playing around with new techniques. We'll see in a few weeks!

Cool. Thanks for all the great feedback. We'll soon see what she yields. One thing for sure is this won't be my last hop experiment

I used to be a believer in the fewer hop varieties = better IPA ideas but I've had some fantastic beers this month that have had 6+ hop varieties. The NHC IPA winner had 6 or 7 varieties and I enjoyed 'Hop Manna' IPA last night which has three or four British hops in the boil and 3/4 American hop varieties to dry hop. Now I'm not saying dump in a dozen varieties and hope for the best, but variety can be done right.

I've done some IPAs recently with more 4+ hop varieties and found that even though they've come out really good, the flavor was a bit muddled - I couldn't pick out any individual hop flavors, just a general "hoppy" taste. Still pretty tasty, but I've since scaled back to using 2, maybe 3 varieties per brew, mainly using each at different intervals in the boil.

I had a Pliney the Elder draft the other day at my local, and Dear Mother of Goodness was that particular pour balanced. It’s not always that way, but this time the taste profile was this huge perfect TOWERING smooth bell curve. It was magnificent. “Bitter” had nothing to do with it, and as we know it’s one of the most hopped beers – of all beers. (One of my LHBS guys makes fun of people who make Pliney clones – something about lemmings.)

But I have a well worn anecdote: My roommate in college worked at this top Audiophile shop in Beverly Hills. One day I was there and we were in this room cranking a ~$350K system, and I turned to my friend and said something – BUT – I could not hear my own voice. Nothing came out. It was startling, creepy, still gives me goose bumps. The thing is, what we commonly think of as “loud” or “too loud” is actually distortion – not volume.

THAT is how I think of great West Coast IPAs: “Imperial”, “Double”, ..whatever. Many are too bitter, even bordering on stupid, but when it’s right, it is transcendent!

Pliney the Younger uses 6 varieties. I believe the Elder uses 5. So you’re in good company, but the number of varieties isn’t the dealio: it’s that intricate and elusive balance.

But since even Russian River can’t get it right every time, we should be somewhat consoled if we can’t.

It seems to me sometimes you don't want to pick out individual hop flavors.

I think it will be great if you want a general, rounded impression of hoppiness, rather than the sharply focused character you'd get from 1 or 2 hops. Of course, other than the Willamette and maybe the CTZ, a lot of those hops will give heavily overlapping flavors anyway. I think the only problem you'd have is if you wanted to adjust the recipe in the future.

I'm brewing the Green Flash West Coast IPA this weekend...26.64 oz of five different hops... for a 21 gallon batch.

Ben58 said:

I'm brewing the Green Flash West Coast IPA this weekend...26.64 oz of five different hops... for a 21 gallon batch.

Click to expand...

That's the best WC IPA IMHO. So goooooooood