Challenger vs. Amarillo hops

[JLem]

I'd like to brew up a basic English-style Pale Ale, and had the following hop schedule in mind:

1 oz Challenger (45 min)
0.5 oz Williamette (15 min)
0.5 oz Williamette (dry hop in secondary 7-10 days)

I went to my LHBS to pick up ingredients but they didn't have any Challenger hops and instead suggested some Amarillo.

How will replacing the Challenger with the Amarillo affect the taste? I'm sure it will still be a good tasting beer, just curious what those of you with more experienced hop tasting can tell me about the difference.

 

[BigEd]

Amarillo are American "C" hops and are nothing like Challenger. Yes the beer will be OK but there had to be a better sub available.

 

[GreenwoodRover]

Man the LHBS advice was pretty off.
Amarillo is really citrusy, to me its like tasting the white part of a grapefruit.
I love it in my APA and summer time brews.
Waht was the malt/extract schedule for this beer?

 

[ajf]

If you have enough Willamette, they will do much better. You'll need about 2 oz Willamette to replace 1 oz Amarillo.

Other good choices of commonly available hops would be any variety of Goldings or Fuggles (using about the same amount as Willamette),

-a.

 

[JLem]

Waht was the malt/extract schedule for this beer?

I'm planning on mini-mashing 3lbs of Maris Otter with 8oz of Crystal 60L, sparging and a 45 minute boil with the hop schedule above. I'll add 3 lbs of DME during the last 15 min of the boil.

 

[GreenwoodRover]

I second the additional willamette vs amarillo, but that malt bill, although definately slanted towards the british side, is failry generic. If you've got some other american type hops go with those.
If not let her rip. Regardless it will still be beer, your beer, and will probably be great.

 

[MaynardX]

Since it is added at 45min in the boil, would the type of hop really even matter much? I assume its more for the bittering and as long as the AA% is close to what you are after, I would assume it wouldn't effect the flavor profile much. Yet, I'm still a new to all this, so someone correct me if I'm wrong....

 

[JLem]

I second the additional willamette vs amarillo, but that malt bill, although definately slanted towards the british side, is failry generic. If you've got some other american type hops go with those.
If not let her rip. Regardless it will still be beer, your beer, and will probably be great.

I'm kinda of trying for generic here - I'd like to brew up a "simple" pale ale, something akin to Bass et al. - which is why I have such a basic grain bill. I have no idea what to expect from combining different hops - I only used a single type in my other beers (all two of them!). I'm concerned with the Amarillo clashing(?) with the Williamette. Maybe I should just go back my LHBS and pick up some more Williamette or Fuggles or Kent to keep this in the English-style.

 

[Danek]

I don't think you'll notice much flavor contribution from early boil additions, so if you want an English character, how about swapping the Willamette and the Challenger around? I don't think we can get Willamette over here, so I wouldn't usually consider using it for an English-style brew. But Challenger on the other hand makes a great ordinary bitter, so if you get the bitterness from the Willamette and the slight spiciness from the Challenger, that grain bill should give you something very close to Coniston Bluebird, which is a superb beer.

That said I have no idea what the AA% of Willamette is, so you might need to mess around with boil times to get the IBUs you want.

 

[kornbread]

Before I go to the LHBS I always consult this page to select a few substitute hops. That way, if I get there and they don't have my first choice, I already have a couple of back up choices.

Acording to the site: It doesn't look like Amarillo would be a very good substitute for challenger hops. I haven't used challengers yet so I can't say for sure.

Good Luck with the beer.

 

[GreenwoodRover]

Regardless of how long you boil a specific hops you will still get some flavor profile from it. I won't be right up front in your face but an experienced palate will definately pick it up.
If the bittering addition didn't matter in terms of final flavor, people would just buy/use the cheapest highest, alpha hop they can at 60 and 45 to get their IBU's up and minimize their cost/IBU.

Most Willamettes I've used range from 4-5% AA, most Challengers I've had are between 7-9%AA (same for Amarillo) it seems your LHBS also subscribes to the "never mind the bittering addition flavor" theory as well hence the sub with a similar AA% hops. to me it looks like they were too lazy or didn't have the skill set to actually do the math for the switch to a true english style hop and doing the math for the conversion due to the use of a lower AA hop.

That said, I'm still all for letting it go and seeing what happens. I'm fairly certain it won't be at all similar to Bass ale but you'll neven know unless you try. It might just be the best beer you've ever had.

 

[JLem]

Most Willamettes I've used range from 4-5% AA, most Challengers I've had are between 7-9%AA (same for Amarillo) it seems your LHBS also subscribes to the "never mind the bittering addition flavor" theory as well hence the sub with a similar AA% hops. to me it looks like they were too lazy or didn't have the skill set to actually do the math for the switch to a true english style hop and doing the math for the conversion due to the use of a lower AA hop.

That said, I'm still all for letting it go and seeing what happens. I'm fairly certain it won't be at all similar to Bass ale but you'll neven know unless you try. It might just be the best beer you've ever had.

Yeah - all the guy seemed concerned about was the AA% and I didn't think to ask about flavor. I'm not particularly interested in experimenting with this batch (well, part of me is) - I really want an English-style bitter - so I think I'll grab me something more appropriate and hold onto the Amarillo for a future batch.