Willamette 7.5% AA?

Brewing tomorrow morning, purchased my hops from the new LHBS in town today, and just noticed that the Willamettes I purchased were labeled as 7.5% AA. Having not used the hop very much, I decided to do some research. It seems all the hop guides and online homebrew shops say Willamette is usually around 5-6%.

Is 7.5% common? Should I calculate my addition at 7.5 or something more common. I'm making a robust porter and really don't want to overdo (or under-do) the hops.

Thanks in advance!

If you are able to calculate it out I would. The program I use lets you change the %AA. I would calculate so that if you like the beer and you can not find the same %AA in the future you can use new calulation to get the same results. I just did a English Brown and used Willamette Pellets 6%AA for a calculated 22.7 IBU and I should have used a bit more (just a little). Now that I calculated it out I will be able to change it for my next batch no matter what the %AA I have. Good luck, rember it will be beer either way you do it.

Just received my latest batch of Willamette from Hop Union and they were 4.7% . unfortunately I didn't keep track of previous years hops.

7.5 % is really high,willamette is usually in the 4-6% range.Like the previous poster,my latest purchase came in today and was 4.75%.
I would recalculate for the difference if it were me.

FWIW- the current cascade crop came in really high this year too, 9-10% from what I have heard.I haven't seen any that high yet though.

Fat_Bastard said:

FWIW- the current cascade crop came in really high this year too, 9-10% from what I have heard.I haven't seen any that high yet though.

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Just bought a pound of cascade whole leaf that are labeled 9.1% and noticed the perles were like 10.7% so I would say that high alphas are not impossible for this years crop

step said:

Just bought a pound of cascade whole leaf that are labeled 9.1% ...

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I'm guessing those are from freshops, since I've got the same thing. I've also got some Magnum from them that is 20.5%.

This years alphas are very high. Direct hops had a crop of Ultra at 9%, it's usally 2-3%. The hops i've received from this years crop are awesome. It should be a really good year for hoppy beers.

I got a batch of W pellets a few weeks ago from BMW, 4.9%. I do suggest you use the value you got and adjust the recipe accordingly.

I'd call the shop and make sure they aren't dyslexic. 5.7% vs 7.5% ?

dankev said:

I'm guessing those are from freshops, since I've got the same thing. I've also got some Magnum from them that is 20.5%.

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Damn, even at 13% I usually don't use a full ounce.