100 year old hop plant recipe?

[quantrellc]

My Dad was talking with a rancher friend of his and was telling him I brew beer, so he said there is a home stead on his place with hop plants that are 100 plus years old and he was told that the folks that lived there long ago had used them for brewing and thought it would be neat if I could brew something up for him using those hops. So they went out and harvested a bunch today and my Mom is drying some of them for me now and they will bring them by in about a week. I have never used home grown hops before so I was looking for ideas on how to make a beer for this old boy. I was thinking a basic apa type grain bill mostly two row with a little light crystal and use a known hop for bittering and use the others toward the last thirty minutes of the boil for flavor and aroma. Think this will work out alright? It will be fun experimenting and hopefully I can give this old rancher a little taste of history of his place.

 

[CRoth36]

That's sounds awesome. I'd do exactly what you've got planned. Hope to turns out good and he's pleased with the beer. If it doesn't work out oh we'll at least you tried.

 

[Wolfbrau]

Cool plan. Use a very simple recipe - back in the day they did not have a huge variety of malts. Base malt plus a pound or two of "toasted" malt like Amber malt. Use, like, Yakima Magnum or Warrior or Super Galena for bittering. Something super neutral. Then do the old Dogfish Head trick of adding equal portions of hops every 60 seconds for the last 10 to 20 minutes of the boil, depending on how much you have.

I'd drink it.

 

[kcmobrewer]

Me too that sounds cool


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[quantrellc]

Thanks for the bittering hop ideas, I like the idea of using something as neutral as possible. Hopefully I can get this rolling in a week or so and will keep you posted as I go along.

 

[giraffe]

Assume they are similar to cluster, and go from there.

 

[unionrdr]

It'd be interesting to rub some in your hands to get a wiff of what kind they might be?!...

 

[quantrellc]

Thanks for the cluster hop idea, I had a chance to do a little reading on hops from that era and had no idea that according to what I read that like 90+% of hops in those days were clusters.

 

[seanybubbles]

Very interested to see how this turns out....


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[rekoob]

This is very cool. Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[NTexBrewer]

With 100 year old hoop plant I guess you can call th hem "centennial" hops.

If you think they are Cluster them Google Cluster F#ck recipes. There are quite a few recipes and breweries that have made apa and ipa with Cluster.


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[jhoneycutt]

Have you actually seen these plants yourself yet?

 

[NickTheGreat]

I think Old Rancher APA has a nice ring to it!

I'm excited to see how this turns out

 

[quantrellc]

I haven't seen them first hand yet I should get them tonight and hopefully brew next week. Here is a picture my mom sent me of them.

 

[unionrdr]

Man, look at all the lupulin globules in those cones!!!

 

[quantrellc]

Dumb question since this is my first time using home grown hops, is all that lupulin a good thing?

 

[JonM]

Sub'd. This is really cool.

 

[Ray1993]

dumb question since this is my first time using home grown hops, is all that lupulin a good thing?

yes!!!

 

[bbycrts]

Those are beautiful! I wanna try them!

 

[unionrdr]

That'd be great! They look really good.:rockin:

 

[quantrellc]

Well it's in the fermenter, I ended up making a ten gallon batch using 16 lbs two row, 2 lbs crystal 20, and 2 lbs of amber mashed at 152. I used a 1/2 oz of simcoe at 60 min and then 1 oz of the old plant hops at 30,15,5,and flame out and pitched S05. So we'll see what it turns out like in a month or so.

 

[Jmarsh544]

This is really neat... Hope it turns out fantastic!


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[bobeer]

that's awesome! I"d love to have a resource like that then to put the history of the plants on top of it it just so cool. I hope the apa turns out well. Sounds like a good recipe to me!

 

[Smitty49686]

Well it's in the fermenter, I ended up making a ten gallon batch using 16 lbs two row, 2 lbs crystal 20, and 2 lbs of amber mashed at 152. I used a 1/2 oz of simcoe at 60 min and then 1 oz of the old plant hops at 30,15,5,and flame out and pitched S05. So we'll see what it turns out like in a month or so.

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[quantrellc]

Well the Hoppy Homestead APA turned out really well, much less bitter than I accepted based off the AA% I guesstimated off of when I made the recipe so it came out very balanced with a nice aroma that the fresh hops had when rubbed in my hand and the flavor is exactly like the smell. The hop flavor is not at all like any examples in APA's that I've tried, not citrusy, piney or strong floral ext, but more rounded, earthy, slightly spicy, and with a slight floral taste/aroma. Any way I'll definitely be making it again next year and putting more of the hops in the freezer as my wife says it's her new favorite but the true test will be if dads buddy the rancher likes it. I'll be bottling up a sixer to send his way this weekend so we'll see. 🍻

 

[unionrdr]

Sounds like they might be some kind of noble hop? Smooth, spicy, floral flavors say that to me?

 

[Newsman]

Can you get some rhizomes and send my way? I'd love to try to grow some on my back fence. I figure they would be able to use my fence as a trellis.