Five types of hops to keep on hand?

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Epimetheus

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Which five type hops would you suggest to keep on hand?
You could list 2 or 7 types, but try for 5.
Styles: mostly American and the occasional Brit.

I am planning to order some bulk hops. 5 lbs I can go through in a year, more would kinda go stale. Any one-off hops I would get from the LHBS.
 
There's a lot of choices.

I would go with some high AA hops like Chinook, Columbus, Warrior or Simcoe. Pick which 2 you like the most of them. All work well with American Ales, Warrior especially for IPAs.

Some low alphas like Cascade, Fuggles, or Willamette.

And then maybe a medium or 2, Amarillo, Centennial, or Palisades

If I personally had to pick 5, I'd go Fuggles, Centennial, Amarillo, Simcoe and Warrior. Since they're pretty much my 5 favorite.
 
I'd go with East Kent Goldings which can pretty much cover any occasional British beer you want to brew.

I like to always have Cascade and Centennial on hand. You can do a wide range of American styles with this - lots of good piney and citrusy flavors to be had. The other three it depends a lot more of what kind of hop character you look for. I like to use CTZ in most of my IPA's and APA's. I also use a fair amount of Nugget and Summit.

So there's five! There's lots of other hops I use but many of them can be tricky to find. Those five are five you'll probably always find in my freezer.
 
In my house, it's all C's. Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and Citra. That's not all I brew with, but it is what I keep on hand.
 
I prefer Pale Ales and IPA's so my hops are geared to that, but the 5 I would keep are Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Citra, and Amarillo.

Currently I have all of those plus Calypso, Legacy, Fuggle, Williamette, Czech Saaz, Belma, Magnum, and Hallertau. Of course I have a few misc. opened packs of hops of Galaxy, Simcoe, etc. But the main ones listed above were bought in 1 pound packages and broken down into 1oz packaging by myself.
 
Centennial
Columbus
Citra
Cascade
Simcoe

And then I usually have a smaller quantity of something new, interesting, or English. Right now I have some New Zealand hops I was enjoying and a couple lbs of Belma that I want to experiment with soon.
 
Me too. copped a pound of 5 NZ hops; Motueka,super alpha,pacific gem,pacifica,& wakatu.
I also keep Czech saaz & fuggle around. I also like German haulertauer with the saaz.
Then of course Columbus,amarillo,nugget,cascade & the like for pale ales/IPA's,but the listed ones mainly. I also must iterate that sterling & ahtanum go very well together too.
I can't list just five. Those would only cover PA/APA/IPA's. My pallet is just to wide to be so limited.
 
Magnum - Clean bittering hop for any style

Williamette - More of an "earthy", "Floral" hop good for brown ales, porters, cream ales, anything you don't want citrus in.

EKG - English styles (bitter/S. English brown)

Cascade - Awesome as finishing/dry hop in APA, IPA, etc.

Chinook, Simcoe or Amarillo - For potent hop presence in IPA/APA/Amber, Etc.
 
(East Kent) Goldings
Cascade
CTZ
Hallertau
Citra/Amarillo whatever fruity/citrusy/tropical hop strikes your fancy.

Doubletapbrewing: For hops that work with amber ales did you mean American Amber? Style guidelines say citrusy hops but not too fruity, although a smooth bittering hop shouldn't be discounted. The goal is to just balance the malt while not straying into the APA territory.
 
I think my favorite hop is chinook. So versatile. Bittering, flavor and aroma. Its good from a FWH to a dry hop.

If I needed to keep a stock of hops, it would be:

chinook
centenntial
simcoe
motueka
pacific gem
wai-iti
EKG

Pretty versatile group there. You could brew a lot of different beers.
 
So far the count looks like this. (Sorry, gcdowd, did not get your contribution in yet) Certainly my choice of subs can be questioned. However you play it, the 3 C's are right up there with Cascade way out front.

My current 5 bulk choices from this would be
aroma Cascade,
bittering Columbus,
aroma Willamette (can get it locally),
dual Fuggles,
dual Amarillo or Citra.
East Kent Golding is more popular but Fuggles is dual-role and has that UK earthiness. I could try them by making 2 liter batches of DME and hopping with a fractional ounce of each, at 30 min and 7 min. Heck, I might do that and not carbonate, just keep the wort on hand for comparing.

Differing opinions are welcome. Might be an interesting poll.

hops count.jpg
 
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