Can you identify these hops?

Hi,

Moving into a new house I have discovered a huge amount of hops growing on my fence. Around 15 meters long hedge with hops all the way through.

Can anyone identify the plant please before I start brewing with it?

Thanks for any help! - UK based.



http://1aardvark.co.uk/images/hop1.jpg
http://1aardvark.co.uk/images/hop2.jpg
http://1aardvark.co.uk/images/hop3.jpg

Please resize the pictures. Not everyone has a gigabit connection.

http://yfrog.com/c8hop3j
http://yfrog.com/bhhop2j
http://yfrog.com/n7hop1j

Done it fur ya. Cause I'm bored, nice find.

Post more!

Thanks for the resize.... any clues? I got loads of them!

How long are the sidearms?

I don't know what you mean by sidearms... but the plant runs right through a hedge and the whole plant is intertwined along it

Sidearms would be like branches coming off the main trunk. If this were growing up a traditional piece of twine in a conventional manner, you would have 2 to 5 main bines (trunk) growing up the twine and a sidearms (branches) coming off every foot or so depending on the variety. If this is intertwined in a hedge, you may have a hard time picking out the sidearems from the main bine.

I would consider myself fortunate to have so many mature plants. Even if you can't figure out what variety these are, BREW, BREW, BREW. Congratulation.

I think that I can help you. If you send me a sample of your hops after you dry and vac. seal them I will brew a few beers with them and be able to make a better detirmination of what you have. For this study I will require around 8 oz. of dried hops.

Seriously, firguring out hop variety is very very hard from pictures alone. It looks like you have a very bountiful crop at your new place. Hopefully they are a usable variety. Most of the wild plants that I find around my area aren't. When I find a new plant I harvest as much as I can, dry, and brew with them. I make a smash (single malt and single hop) with eight-ten pounds of base grain and four additions of the unknown hop. I use a neutral yeast and ferment in the low 60's(F). This has worked wonderfully for me. I've found one plant that I'll use again, and two others that I'll just marvel at as they grown throughout the summer. But I've drank every beer that I've made with them, so it's a win-win.

The other not so fun method would be to take some to a local commercial brewer. He/she may be able to help you out. Hope my advice helps!

This one has pics: http://www.yakimachief.com/hopvarieties/ycivarieties.pdf

This one doesn't: http://www.murphyandson.co.uk/BrewingArticles/HopSpecs.htm#english

Good Luck,

Dave

Thanks people. very much appreciated. I'm new to this brewing thing so I don't have much to compare it against. My biggest fear is to brew a brew that is just bad! but maybe I'll go for it anyway.

Some have said just use it as a flavour hop and not a bitter hop. Some to use it by it's self to see how it goes.

The smell of it is very 'beery' with an almost citrus sent to it. Lime / lemon.

Should I take out all the hops going brown and just keep the fresh looking green ones?

any advice for you experts is very much appreciated!

Nick

This is excellent - thanks - the pdf is great

SkiSoloII said:

This one has pics: http://www.yakimachief.com/hopvarieties/ycivarieties.pdf

This one doesn't: http://www.murphyandson.co.uk/BrewingArticles/HopSpecs.htm#english

Good Luck,

Dave

Click to expand...

I'd say it looks closest to a cascade plant. Although I'm in the UK and I don't think we get much cascade over here.

Although the smell seems to be first gold / pioneer....

who knows!

I'd venture a guess that http://yfrog.com/n7hop1j looks like Nugget. At least, they look like MY Nugget - very round, bulbous, tight cones.

they do look quite nuggety - compared to nugget searches on the web.. a bittering hop more than a flavour.. am i right?

Going by alpha acid, you could say that. Though, i'm partial to brews with ONLY Nugget, too.

Just by hop cone alone it can be tough to identify. You also have to look at the leaves and other characteristics (including chemical properties) of the plant. You might not ever know exactly what they are without an expert and some tests done. They might even be a wild strain. However, I would still do a test batch with them. Use them for both bittering and finishing. That way you will know both of the properties. If the beer doesn't turn out then you've wasted a few hours and a few bucks, but at least you'll know.

My cascade cones are more than twice that size.

Can you brew a tea to compare them? I have seen that mentioned as a means for estimating alpha acid content. If you brew a tea with a few cones, and compare that against teas made with known hops (a few nugget pellets, for example) I would think you could at least know if you have a match or not. Seems a lower cost/lower financial risk option than a full batch of beer with unknown hops. I have not done this, though may need to, as a couple of my plants got shuffled and became mystery plants. I am just throwing this out as an idea. Has anyone tried this?

Saaz are famous for their red vine

That's a great idea. At least I could compare the Fuggles I have with the garden variety.

Although can anyone tell me what a high alpha would taste like?