Training my palate.

This might have been done before but the search button has failed me, so here is the question. I would like to train my palate to detect the differences in hops so what I would like to do is make a series of IPAs that focus on a single hop. These will be small batches like 2 or 3 gallons and I was just curious if anyone had any suggestions about the grain bill. And hopping schedule for that matter. Any feedback would be nice or links to anyone that has done this.

If you wanted to do it quicker, you could just make hop tea.

Why not start out with plain hop tea, so you can taste them in isolation first?

EDIT: ha, beat to the punch. Must be a good idea.

Hop tea with some type of sweetener as a flavor enhancer would probably work. Past that, I don't know if your an extract brewer or AG, but I would probably invest in some DME to make it easy and do a series of 1 gallon batches. There are probably a dozen varieties at the minimum that you'll want to aquaint yourself with, and that's a year of brewing for some otherwise.

Never thought of that lol thanks

bottlebomber said:

Hop tea with some type of sweetener as a flavor enhancer would probably work. Past that, I don't know if your an extract brewer or AG, but I would probably invest in some DME to make it easy and do a series of 1 gallon batches. There are probably a dozen varieties at the minimum that you'll want to aquaint yourself with, and that's a year of brewing for some otherwise.

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I'm an ag brewer and I'm just trying to get a good handle on all the different ingredients. I've been brewing for over a year and I still feel like I'm on day one with ingredient selection and knowledge.

I don't know if you have a Bevmo or other good beer store around you, but Hermitage has a line of single hopped IPAs that are excellent. As far as I know they have Amarillo, Citra, and Columbus

I have a cheaper idea, just go to the store and smell the different hops, smell and taste are very similar, but you can easly buy a quarter oz of each hop variety and make a small tea

Myself I found it easy to train by reading reviews for beers before I drink them to get an idea of what to look for in the beer and then find it and then you are able to identify the tastes

We do and talk about single hop beers all the time on here, use your "search-fu" and look for SMaSHes or SMaSH beers (Single malt/single hop beers) you take a single malt (or pure blend of extract) and one single variety of hop, and make a beer with them, and then change the hops, or change the extract....You can do it as 2.5 gallon batches, 1 gallon, 5, whatever. You can make them into anything from simple pale ales to IIPAs by the amount of hops you use. The combos are endless.

You might also head down to the bottle shop and look for some Mikkeller. They have an extensive single hop series. Tough part might be making sure its fresh.

Revvy said:

We do and talk about single hop beers all the time on here, use your "search-fu" and look for SMaSHes or SMaSH beers (Single malt/single hop beers) you take a single malt (or pure blend of extract) and one single variety of hop, and make a beer with them, and then change the hops, or change the extract....You can do it as 2.5 gallon batches, 1 gallon, 5, whatever. You can make them into anything from simple pale ales to IIPAs by the amount of hops you use. The combos are endless.

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Thanks Rev, I've seen SMaSH before but never bothered to look it up before. I'll probably go that route. I'll have to look for those brands. I don't think I've seen them but then again I haven't bought beer in a long time lol

I'm doing something similar to what Revvy mentioned. I bought six 1 gallon plastic jugs of distilled water, added some Burton salts to each, and made six different 1 gallon batches of a fairly simple pale ale. The jugs double as great 1 gallon fermenters, they are the perfect size after water has boiled off while making the wort. Just drill a hole in the screw-off caps and add a blowoff tube fixed on with rubber bands on either side of the cap. The inside of the distilled water bottles should be sanitary already, but be sure to sanitize everything else (including the outside of the bottles).

My motivation was a little different - I'm trying to decide on a few hop varieties to grow next spring. I'd say this is one of the most interesting projects I have done in my short brewing experience.

I decided on 6 different hops mainly because it will make a pretty cool variety six-pack! I'm going to have to make some labels for this one though - don't want to get confused on what is in each bottle. Here’s a picture of each in my high-tech fermentation chamber! It does make for a cool mad-scientist looking project. If you are looking for a way to get a feel for a few different hops and have about 9 hours to spend, this is definitely worth your time.

bottlebomber said:

I don't know if you have a Bevmo or other good beer store around you, but Hermitage has a line of single hopped IPAs that are excellent. As far as I know they have Amarillo, Citra, and Columbus

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As a learning experience I thought those were great, as an IPA, eh..... Too much crystal and not nearly dry enough for my taste. I wasn't a fan.

mikkeller brewery has an EXTENSIVE line of single hop beers, but they are NOT cheap.