Your Favorite Hop For Dry Hopping IPA's

Over the years Simcoe has been my favorite and I have plenty for this year...at least 9-10 lbs, but I've been experimenting with lots of different hops in the secondary stage to supplement Simcoe. I guess I'm partly preparing for less and less Simcoe in the future or maybe I'm wanting something different.

Anyway, what are you guys using in IPA's? I like the fruity/citrus/floral flavors in a big way. I've been through the Zythos, Citra, Palisade, Amarillo craze. I'm about to be drinking one with some Simcoe/Horizon. I like a little CTZ too, but in small amounts. I'm looking for something that really stands out.

Are you saying that Citra doesn't stand out?

Where do you buy your Simcoe? I've been wanting to try it, but everywhere I've looked has been sold out forever.

By your tastes cascade would be the next one to try.

I just did a Falconer's Flight 7 C's single hop IPA. My wife and best friend pegged it as stone fruit. I agree but I got some citrus in there too. It seemed pretty mellow for a higher alph acid hop, with some cool flavors. Definitely give that one a shot.

I have an IPA in primary featuring sorachi ace. I've never had sorachi ace so I don't know what to expect.

Citra is amazing for aroma and flavor, i just made an amarillo/citra IPA and it is by far my best brew to date and maybe even my favorite IPA ever. Now i wish i put more citra in for dry hopping cause the wonderful aroma only lasted about a week and it has died quite a bit, still delicious but not as aromatic as it was when i first kegged

Galaxy is amazing!

Centennial. I would use it in a mash hop, for every addition or even better continuously hopped, also in a hop back, in primary fermentation, in secondary fermentation and in a randal. You get extra credit if there is fresh wet centennial that you grew but dried bought centennial in either pellet or whole leaf will work.

Good ol classic Cascade

Amarillo!

Chinook

Gotta love that Amarillo! However my saison dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin is one of my favorite recipes to date.

I love simcoe and falconers flight but if you want to try something different try rakau, it's different but very good.

spenghali said:

By your tastes cascade would be the next one to try.

Click to expand...

Yes cascade

Columbus for the oils, Amarillo for the aroma, and Simcoe for its all-goodness. That combo in equal amounts is fan-tastic.

Good god men, I just dropped some science... lets all drink to that.

Zamial said:

Centennial. I would use it in a mash hop, for every addition or even better continuously hopped, also in a hop back, in primary fermentation, in secondary fermentation and in a randal. You get extra credit if there is fresh wet centennial that you grew but dried bought centennial in either pellet or whole leaf will work.

Click to expand...

This!! ThisThisThis!!!

I just did my first dry hop with 1/2 oz centennial and 1/2 oz simcoe for two 6 day rounds (one ounce of each total).

I'm bottling tonight, I expect it to be amazing.

when in doubt i use cascade.

I've had results i like with Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra

Barnzy02 said:

when in doubt i use cascade.

I've had results i like with Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra

Click to expand...

When in doubt I go Centennial... I just LOVE everything Cent.

I also agree that Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra are unique. I just kicked a keg of Amarillo/Simcoe and it was amazing! But at the end of the day my favorite is still Centennial.

Simcoe and columbus are my favs.. toss in a little Amarillo sometimes. I like the suggestions to go back to basics w/ Cascade though.

ScottSingleton said:

When in doubt I go Centennial... I just LOVE everything Cent.

I also agree that Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra are unique. I just kicked a keg of Amarillo/Simcoe and it was amazing! But at the end of the day my favorite is still Centennial.

Click to expand...

i made a SMaSH with Centennial, big fan of that hop as well.

Columbus and centennial are my two favs.

AustinBrewDawg said:

Where do you buy your Simcoe? I've been wanting to try it, but everywhere I've looked has been sold out forever.

Click to expand...

I get it mostly from Farmhouse brewing here, but it's scarce right now.

I dig the citra, but mostly for the aroma, not flavor. It just seems to lack in flavor compared to the full simcoe flavor. I may go back to good old cascade and centennial for old times sake. I'll try some of what you guys are recommending. I appreciate the responses.

I remember using cascade a few years ago and thinking it left a harsh taste in the IPA when I used a lot of it. I know a lot of so called experts claim that lower cohumulone percentage hops tend to be more forgiving with weird off flavors when used in high quantities like I use. Since I read that I have been trying to use hops with 30% or lower cohumulone, high oil content and high fragrance. Maybe the batch I made with a lot of cascade was Effed up by some other mistake I made.

Keep in mind...I'm using minimum 4 ozs in 5 gallon carboy and as much as 6 ozs like in a Pliney clone. I think maybe I should separate a gallon at a time and try small batch experiments with dry hopping to avoid screwing up a full carboy. I could actually take the same beer, split it into 5 one gallon containers and each would be hopped with only one strain to do a real comparison. Time to try something different here.

I agree with those who said Centennial.

Centenial and cascade here

Just brewed my forts amber rocked it from scratch used about an 7th of citra for my boil and threw in cascade and chinook towards the end...10 minss left...will be dry hopping with citra soon..crazy combo I know but well see

I made an all Chinook IPA last month and drank my first one yesturday. It's a really great beer, definitely making it again. Also just brewed an Arrogant Bastard Clone using Chinook.

Summit! My new favorite

Columbus is great, Simcoe awesome

Citra is good but I don't like how it mixes with others...but by itself yummy

Centennial! Greatest hop ever

Though I do appreciate a summit IPA. There seems to be a whitewashing of beer that is "citrusy" on the market and the whole grapefruit flavor can get a little tiring after awhile, even for a hophead like me. LOVE Widmer and Great Divide's summit IPAs, just nice to get a difffernt aroma every now and again

I use quite a bit of centennial during the boil, but never dry hop with it. I will do that on the next go round. You guys have great suggestions, for example...citra does not mix well with others, which is what I did when I used some of my 2 lb bag. I'll try an all citra dry hop too along with good old cascade and centennial in the future too. I also like the smell of the chinook. You guys got me motivated to get away from my beloved Simcoe. Gotta change it up once in a while.

All Citra is interesting - I did one not too long ago and, more than any other IPA I've ever made, the flavor of that one changed the most dramatically over the course of two months. By the end of two months, it was awesome.

I just did an ipa that i dry hopped with chinook ahtanum amarillo and galaxy. 1oz each in the carboy during secondary for 2weeks. I must say one of the best combinations of aromas i have achieved so far in my ipas.

Some of my favs are Chinook (grapefruit and piney), Summit (orange and tangerine), Nugget (earthy with a little peach). I do enjoy Centennial but I only get floral from it no citrus, so I like to mix it with Cascade.

I recently did two single hop IPAs, one with Citra and one with Galaxy, that were both dry-hopped for 1 wk. They are two of my favorite IPAs that I have done.

Amarillo is my favorite hop for dry hopping.

I should have never started this thread. I already have about 20 lbs of hops in the basement freezer and it looks like I'm adding to that very soon. Great suggestions here.

I am a huge fan of dry hopped beers and have been doing .75 gallon experiments for the last couple of months, using 1 pound of DME and a single type of hops - enough for bittering + 1 oz. dry hop. What I have been surprised about is how much the dry hops seem to be affecting the flavor. So far I've tried the following:

Cascade - awesome 'hoppy' aroma, but the flavor was on the edge of being too grapefruity. Still very drinkable though.

Amarillo - similar to the cascade but it had more exotic tropical fruit smells and flavors in the mix. My favorite aroma so far but the flavor had some slight chemical/medicinal off flavors that were a little too foreign to my taste buds.

Zythos - my overall favorite so far. It had an aroma that was really close to cascade, but the flavor was toned down and not as citrusy. It did have a slight 'tartness' or what I would describe as an acidic quality though.

Falconer's Flight - to me this was like a cascade where the grapefruit flavor was replaced with a tangerine flavor - good but on the edge of being too tangeriney tasting.

Anyway, long story short - I'm looking to try hop varieties (other than Zythos, which is hard to get) that are similar to good ol' cascade but with the grapefruity/citrusy flavor aspect toned down a bit, or a hops that will blend well with cascade and offset some of that grapefruit. It sounds like there are a lot of centennial fans here but I don't feel like anyone has really explained why this hop is such a favorite. Any suggestions?