Polaris Hops, What Do You Think?

[el_kirk]

So after reading several different (and widely varying) posts on what people thought about this hop I thought I'd start a new thread to find out what other folks think about the hop.

If you have a recipe or other details, please post it, so others might learn from your experience.

I had a beer made from them yesterday by the Snake River Brewing Company in Jackson, WY.

I don't have much in the way of specifics on their beer, but the menu made it sound like it was part of a single hop series they were doing. I got a bit of lemony citrus in the nose, possibly a bit of mint. The flavor though, was amazingly bad, with strong garlic and onion flavors that ruled over the beer like an angry despot. I didn't finish the pint.

This was a really interesting beer to taste, as I generally feel like Snake River does an excellent job with their beers. Based on this, I know I never need to brew with Polaris hops. Not ever. So they taught me something and I got to try something new.

Anyone else have an experience they'd like to share?

 

[kadozen]

Polaris is the bittering hop in the cantankerous ale kit from AHA. I could smell the minty from it on brew day which worried me but the beer came out awesome, don't got my notes so I can't tell you the other hops in it, but I know it was 2Oz of polaris for bittering only.

 

[el_kirk]

Bump for the PM crowd?
Or is this hop even more obscure than I thought it was?

 

[MrVix]

I just brewed a Polaris single hop IPA. It gets bottled on Monday 8/5. Give it a couple weeks of conditioning and I will give you my input. I have to say the hop aroma was amazing. It is a high A/A and high oil hop. The hop pellets were very moist almost oily, I have never encountered that in any hop that I had ever handled. I'll post more in a couple weeks.

 

[cdpilkington]

Background: this is when I worked at a reasonably large UK craft brewery.

We got in Polaris 2 years ago and did a Single hop beer with it. Simple pale ale recipe, except with IPA levels of late hop additions (only about 35 IBU).

Utterly undrinkable. Like a mint, grass, and onion mouthwash. We then dry-hopped it and that just made it even worse. In the whole time I worked there that was the only batch we even considered pouring down the drain. In the end we transferred it to whisky barrels, just in case.

Based on this I'm avoiding it as a late hop addition or dry hop, except maybe to try it as a small % of a blend of other hops.
It might, of course, work in other styles, I could imagine it adding an interesting note when used sparingly in a stout or when paired with critters.