2011 Hopunion Summit Hops - onion or no?

Ok, so the LHBS didn't have centennial hops, so I had to pick something on the fly, so I grabbed summit. Get back home, browse hbt to find out lots of people have gotten onion flavors from summit hops. I've seen several threads about it, but none of them came up with a concrete explanation for the onion flavor. Was it the batch of hops? The way they were used? etc. I even found different threads that came up with explanations that opposed each other. (some said only to use them as bittering, while others said only to use them as late additions.)

Anyway I was wondering if anyone out there has used any Hopunion brand Summit hops this year. Mine have an AA of 16.1. Any chance anyone has used some from this batch and can tell me if they had nasty onion flavors from it?

THANKS!

I had the organic summit-no onion but was probably like 09-10.Maybe the garlic haters hate the cat-piss hops also? I dont know, it seems people have diffenrent interpetations anyway. It seemed the same discussion with the same source of hops was indiffernet between opinions. I believe it was flavoring with summit hops that they had onion,so if your paranoid then dont flavor with them. Im one of those people that likes onion and garlic probably cuz they are extremly good for you, but garlic breath is garlic not stank ass toilet morning breath either.Its pungent and strong but not offensive to me, unless its doo-doo like.
Im not shure what this is but ive gotten a few commercial beers which seem vegetable/corn like aroma/flavor? cant point out weather its dms or stale hops or something but a local brewery that bottled a cream ale and a ipa with the same smell/taste maybe.

The few beers I've sampled with Summit hops, and they were commercial beers not homebrew, not only had a significant onion punch it was like rotten onions that had been left in the back of the cupboard for a few months. YMMV but before using Summit hops some testing prior to commitment might be a good idea.

I think I'll do a 1 gallon test batch...

take one of the pellets and rub it in between two fingers until you have just fine hop dust and smell it. I can see how people associate that smell with onion/garlic, but i like summit hops.

I'll give them a good smell. Also thinking I'll do some test batches. I'll only use Summit to bitter on the first batch, use it for bittering and flavor in the 2nd batch, and use it for bittering, flavor, and aroma in the 3rd batch and see what happens...

I never got that from Summit, maybe a tiny whiff of green onion from the pellets themselves, but I've never had it come through in the beer. Of course, I also like Columbus & Simcoe a LOT, so maybe I dig the stank?

-d

So, I ended up doing a test batch and only used Summit for bittering, flavor, and aroma additions. I definitely get an earthy/vegetal type of flavor for this beer. Not really enjoying it, but it's not totally disgusting either... I might just use these hops to bitter from now on.