Hey, that's me!
But yeah, the more I brew with Conan, the more convinced I am that it is absolutely key. Conan is a great all-around yeast, but in IPAs, it's insane. It's seems to accent hop fruitiness like nothing else I've seen.
In fact! Tonight I just opened the first bottle of my second IPA brewed with Conan. I don't think I've ever been happier with the first impression of a new batch; it completely turned around an otherwise ****ty day. It's a SMASH: Belma hops and Canada Malting pale ale malt only. If you've read the thread on Belma hops, you'll see that most people are saying they're pretty mild and slightly underwhelming; they're recommending them for saisons and such.
So, having been following that thread for a while, I was expecting this IPA to be pretty mellow and unexceptional. But holy s*** was I wrong Conan seems to have latched onto all the fruity notes from Belma and brought them to the forefront. The aroma and flavor is a blast of strawberries (which was part of the description for the hop), seriously like no other beer I've ever smelled in my life. If I were drinking this at the bar, I would guess it was a Strawberry IPA. There's some melon and peachiness, and I can easily pick out some of the character from my first
Conan-fermented IPA, as well as Heady Topper. I'm going to have a hard time not drinking this entire batch in, like, five days. It's one of the most intensely fruity IPAs I've ever had, homebrewed or not. And I'm pretty sure Conan can take a lot of the credit.
Anyway. I am slightly buzzed now, as I have not had dinner. I'll have a blog entry about that beer soon, and for anyone following my
blog entry about Conan, I'm going to keep updating it as I ferment more batches with the yeast.
TL;DR: Conan is an amazing yeast for any IPA, probably most other styles, and I highly doubt you could come close to cloning Heady Topper without it.