Last year around mid August Hops Direct had a really good clearing out the freezer sale for leaf hops, $2.50/lb.
A few months before, I started making hop seltzer and was really enjoying it. The rate I was going through hops and seltzer was fairly high so I decided to get 10lbs and experiment with varieties I had never tried.
The package got lost by UPS and after 2 weeks I informed Hops Direct. They were great and shipped out another package. The replacement arrived about a week later and put them in freezer.
Wasn't ready to make a new batch for another week or two. Funny thing happened about 2 weeks later. The original order arrived so I now had 20lbs of hops. Was a little worried that sitting in who knows where at who knows what temperature for 5 weeks had ruined them. Opened a bag and was surprised to find they smelled great. So started making seltzer with the original order instead of the replacement to clear them out first.
Fast forward to this year and I still enjoy the hop seltzer just haven't gone through as much of it as originally thought. Turns out 20lbs of leaf hops takes up a really large amount of freezer space. Wanting to reclaim some of that space I decided to start using the leaf hops in my beers.
The last 3 hoppy beers made with these hops have all exhibited the same odd occurrence. They smell excellent but the flavor is just off/odd. Friend describes it as not tasting the way it smells. The first 2 were with multi hop combos that I've never used or tasted. Just chalked it up to using the wrong combos. But the last one was a Smash beer with a known hop and it exhibited the same oddity.
Has anyone seen this before where the hop aroma was excellent but flavor off?
I'm leaning towards something odd happening to hops during the 5 weeks of uncontrolled temps. But would have thought aroma would be off too. Next step is to try a Smash with hops from the replacement package and see what happens.
TLDR; Beer brewed with leaf hops that spent 5 weeks in high uncontrolled temps last year smells great but tastes odd. Anyone ever see this before?
A few months before, I started making hop seltzer and was really enjoying it. The rate I was going through hops and seltzer was fairly high so I decided to get 10lbs and experiment with varieties I had never tried.
The package got lost by UPS and after 2 weeks I informed Hops Direct. They were great and shipped out another package. The replacement arrived about a week later and put them in freezer.
Wasn't ready to make a new batch for another week or two. Funny thing happened about 2 weeks later. The original order arrived so I now had 20lbs of hops. Was a little worried that sitting in who knows where at who knows what temperature for 5 weeks had ruined them. Opened a bag and was surprised to find they smelled great. So started making seltzer with the original order instead of the replacement to clear them out first.
Fast forward to this year and I still enjoy the hop seltzer just haven't gone through as much of it as originally thought. Turns out 20lbs of leaf hops takes up a really large amount of freezer space. Wanting to reclaim some of that space I decided to start using the leaf hops in my beers.
The last 3 hoppy beers made with these hops have all exhibited the same odd occurrence. They smell excellent but the flavor is just off/odd. Friend describes it as not tasting the way it smells. The first 2 were with multi hop combos that I've never used or tasted. Just chalked it up to using the wrong combos. But the last one was a Smash beer with a known hop and it exhibited the same oddity.
Has anyone seen this before where the hop aroma was excellent but flavor off?
I'm leaning towards something odd happening to hops during the 5 weeks of uncontrolled temps. But would have thought aroma would be off too. Next step is to try a Smash with hops from the replacement package and see what happens.
TLDR; Beer brewed with leaf hops that spent 5 weeks in high uncontrolled temps last year smells great but tastes odd. Anyone ever see this before?
