Three-hop combinations?

I am looking to brew an ale/IPA with a combination of three hops (just for fun, and my son came up with a fun name for the beer- Tricerahops).

Anybody else tried mixing up three hops, or any suggestions on what combinations to try? I've been thinking Amarillo, Columbus, Cascade, or even Willamette.

Input much appreciated.

Ninkasi is a West Coast brewery that released a great DIPA named Tricerahops in 2007.

http://www.ninkasibrewing.com/beers/tricerahops

•Starting Gravity: 1080
•Bitterness: 100 IBUs
•Alcohol %: 8.8
•Malt: 2 Row Pale Malt, Munich Malts (I figure Weyermann Light Munich and Munich II), and Carahell Malt
•Hops: Summit, Amarillo, Centennial, Palisade (they also use Crystal hops in the dryhop, but do not disclose this info)

If you wanted something similar, but did not want to use these hops, then any combination of Nugget, Simcoe, Sorachi Ace, Galaxy, Citra, Horizon, Columbus, Northern Brewer, or Chinook would work well. These are my favorite hops for American IPAs.

A random suggestion you can't go wrong with...

Bittering: Columbus
Late and dryhop additions: Citra, Galaxy, Amarillo

Thanks for the suggestion, and the tip-off on the Ninkasi name. Thought we had an original one for once, sigh.

Sounds like we're going to have some fun with this one this weekend.

Just did an IPA with Colombus Amarillo and Cascade. Gravity samples from that brew have been amazingly delicious. I highly recomend this combo! I'll have this in the bottle next week and I will give you some feed back when its carbed up.

I've been doing an imperial with columbus, centennial and cascade for a year now. Fantastic!

Chinook + Centennial + Cascade = winner. Think SN Celebration with that hop combo.

Calichusetts said:

I've been doing an imperial with columbus, centennial and cascade for a year now. Fantastic!

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my first IPA had those 3, it was delicious. I think I am going to brew something similar this weekend, but also use some amarillo.

I like Cascade, Centennial and Citra.

Wow- there are so many IPAs I make with three varieties of hops!

Let's see, some favorite combinations-

Warrior (bittering), simcoe and amarillo (flavor and aroma and dryhopping)

Chinook, centennial, cascade

Magnum (bittering), cascade and willamette for flavor and aroma

Columbus, centennial and cascade

Simcoe, amarillo and ahtanum

Centennial, cascade, simcoe

Magnum (bittering), centennial, and cascade

Magnum, cascade and glacier



And there are several more! I often use three different hops varieties for IPAs- often a neutral one for bittering and then two complementary hops for flavor, aroma, and dryhopping. I don't often use more than three, because I feel that too many different varieties together muddy the flavors.

Looks like I'm going to try Cascade, Columbus and Amarillo this weekend. Many thanks for all of the suggestions, I'm looking forward to trying lots of these combinations.

KraphtBier, please let me know how yours turns out, and I'll keep you posted as well. I think I'm going to try an IPA (just extract) with some crystal 40 and white wheat in there for a little variation. Using the California 001 yeast, so this could get really hoppy fast.

Yooper, wow, lots of great ideas. It'll take me a while to work through that list...

Wheat malt must be mashed, so this won't be an extract beer. And a 100% wheat mash "might" be a little gluey.

I suggest using Extra Light DME, keeping the crystal below 6% of the grist, and finishing below 1.015 FG.

Post back with your rough draft recipe. I'm curious.

I was thinking about doing this as a BIAB mini-mash for the white wheat and crystal, and then adding the DME (I have pilsen light on hand, although I may have the extra light you suggested as well) into the boil for remainder of the grain bill.

This is really just a 2.5-3 gallon experiment I am throwing together from what I have to hand, random hops packages, tail-ends from grain bags, etc.

What I know I have, and was planning to use, roughly:

app. 0.25 lb white wheat;
app. 0.5 lb crystal 40;
[DME to fill out the bill, haven't done calcs yet for app. 2.5 gallons]

I have a 1 oz. package each of Columbus, Cascade, Amarillo, Willamette, and Hallertau. I was planning to use the Columbus for bittering, and then add the Cascade and Amarillo to the boil in that order, maybe saving the Amarillo for a dry hop. I haven't sat down to figure out the weights/timing yet.

One vial o' WLP 001 (fortunately, as otherwise this mishmash would be looking very different).

I know this is kinda rough, but that's where I am so far. Any thoughts/advice?

I'm gearing up to brew an IPA with Cascade, Centennial, and Simcoe. Going to bitter with Nugget, so I guess it's technically 4 hops, but of course the flavor and aroma will come from the other hops. Pretty excited about it.

Marchborne said:

app. 0.25 lb white wheat;
app. 0.5 lb crystal 40;
[DME to fill out the bill, haven't done calcs yet for app. 2.5 gallons]

I have a 1 oz. package each of Columbus, Cascade, Amarillo, Willamette, and Hallertau. I was planning to use the Columbus for bittering, and then add the Cascade and Amarillo to the boil in that order, maybe saving the Amarillo for a dry hop. I haven't sat down to figure out the weights/timing yet.

One vial o' WLP 001 (fortunately, as otherwise this mishmash would be looking very different).

I know this is kinda rough, but that's where I am so far. Any thoughts/advice?

Click to expand...

Looks fine to me, except I'd probably use a bit less crystal in an IPA. Maybe reverse the amounts of the wheat malt and the crystal malt?

You don't have to worry about a gluey mash (not sure what the heck bobbrews is talking about?) and using doing it in a bag is fine. Pilsen DME is extra light DME, so that's fine.

I like Columbus for bittering, and Simcoe and Citra late, going back to the original 3 hop combo question.

I'm currently drinking my house IPA that I've been playing with over several batches. This one has Chinook for bittering, then Chinook, Mosaic and Citra late additions and dry hop. I'm going to keep this recipe its a winner. I'm calling it CMC.