Hops question

Hi there,

For my 2nd brew I am following a recipe in Papazian's book (3rd edition).The beer is called Palilia IPA.

The recipe calls for Northern brewer hops for bittering, and cascade for flavour/aroma.

I ordered the hops from an online store and the bittering hops have a lower aa% than the cascade hops. I thought that the higher aa% hops should be used for bittering and lower aa% for flavour/aroma. I know that the aa% can vary so I guess it's just the online store.

Should I go ahead anyway as described in the recipe? I worked out the IBU and it came to 54 IBU so it sounds about right.

Also, I am just doing a 1 gallon batch - is it fine to downscale and divide everything by 5??

Thanks in advance.

strangecarr said:

Hi there,

For my 2nd brew I am following a recipe in Papazian's book (3rd edition).The beer is called Palilia IPA.

The recipe calls for Northern brewer hops for bittering, and cascade for flavour/aroma.

I ordered the hops from an online store and the bittering hops have a lower aa% than the cascade hops. I thought that the higher aa% hops should be used for bittering and lower aa% for flavour/aroma. I know that the aa% can vary so I guess it's just the online store.

Should I go ahead anyway as described in the recipe? I worked out the IBU and it came to 54 IBU so it sounds about right.

Click to expand...

Yep, go right ahead, as long as the IBU's end up about right. Bittering hops aren't always higher in AA% than flavor/aroma hops. Certain high-AA hops like Summit are excellent for flavor and aroma; others (like Chinook) are pretty harsh tasting and usually only used for bittering. Northern Brewer is a good bittering and mid-addition hop. I don't much care for it as a finisher, though. Cascade works well as both.

What Evan! said, plus, the variation in aa% is year to year, not store to store.

Thanks very much guys.