What kind of hops are these?

Moved into a new house last summer, found hops growing in the back yard. Didn't have the time to handle them, but now I do! I took one of the photos last summer and the other 2 are from yesterday now that they are growing. Can anyone tell me what kind of hops these are? Or how I can go about determining what they are? I'd love to use them this time around!

Thanks!

 

That's awesome! I would guess brewer's hops.


The smell/flavor is really the best way to tell, but some have specific visual characteristics that may be identifiable later in the growing season.

 

When they mature, roll the cone between your hands and smell it. It should give you a general idea of what you're dealing with. Congrats!

 

hops can't be identified visually. you might be able to rule out certain varieties, but cones and stems aren't distinct enough.

smell should get you close, i.e. it's an american hop (cascade, centennial, etc) vs. a noble (saaz, hallertauer, etc). even that isn't guaranteed and won't be precise.

ultimately i think you're going to have to brew with them once ready and figure them out that way. i'd make a very simple pale ale, bitter with a known commercial hop, then late-hop the snot out of that brew with this mystery hop. you may never know the exact variety, but at least you can get an idea what it's best suited for. personally i think the idea of having a "house mystery hop" is pretty cool.

 

The way to find out what variety you have would be to send them in to be tested after they are harvested and properly dried. When you get the results back you can then look up what the different oils, acids and other numbers on the report and match them to known varieties numbers.

Otherwise you could just smell test them to see if they would work better as bittering or aroma and go that route.

 

Brewingmeister, can you recommend a lab for that sort of testing?

 

There's a bunch of places out there that will do testing. I haven't had any tested so I don't have any first hand experience with any of them but I believe hop union supplies hops as well as does testing. Might be able to get all the stats you need and get testing all from the same source. Remember to share the results

 

Brewlab is reasonable.