Dirt clod?! It's all Citrus and Tropical now!!!

[Bramling Cross]

I submit the following in jest, this post is not to be taken with too much gravity.

While killing time during my runoff on Saturday's brew I ran across this video on Fuggles hops. Here is how the infamous triangle taste test participants described Fuggles. You know, Fuggles the infamous hop that thirty years ago was purported to make any beer it touched taste like dirt clods. Fuggles, the dirt clod hop, widely reviled on homebrew forums is now the citrus and tropical fruit hop.

Turns out Fuggles is ideally suited for lagers and APA/IPA

Joking aside, tasting is really hard. Especially when you're invested in the beer in your glass. I always struggle with myself when I'm writing up my tasting notes, "Am I tasting the beer I designed, or am I really tasting the beer as it actually is in the glass?" I often struggle with that.

I suppose it's also worth considering just how quickly and effectively the marketing campaign that the Yakima Valley Hops boys have been running has changed our perception of hops. Tip of the hat to their marketing firm. We've been manipulated by Big Hops! Putting aside that absurd exaggeration and acknowledging it's not just the YVH boys, it is worth remembering the old saw about all problems being nails when you're a hammer: I suppose all hops (even the unfairly reviled dirt clod machine that is Fuggles) sorta become citrus and tropical when citrus and tropical has such a primary place in our thinking about hops. Citrus and tropical sucks a lot of air out of the room.

Anyway, once I finished having a good laugh at the notion that Fuggles is now a citrus/tropical hop, the idea has stuck with me for a couple days and I figured I may as well write about it.

 

[day_trippr]

Fuggles is a parent of Cascade (the other being Serebrianka). I grew Fuggles along with Cascade, Centennial and Chinook, and the Fuggles was kind of the quieter more elegant relative of Cascade. To be honest over the years I dialed back on the Fuggles because I didn't use it anywhere near as much as the others. All that related I don't recall it being referred to as "the dirt clod hop"...

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

this post is not to be taken with too much gravity

So about 1.040 maybe?

 

[tdf]

In addition to the expectations that you mention, which I have no doubt color our flavor perceptions, there have also been serious and continuing changes in hop harvest, kilning, and storage. Even into the 21st century kilning temperatures have continued to fall and refrigeration pre and post pelletizing gets more common. Those fruity aromatics are some of the most volatile when it comes to oxidation.

This article in the December BYO has some great information on this topic:

https://archive.is/AnTqZ

 

[Bramling Cross]

Fuggles is a parent of Cascade (the other being Serebrianka). I grew Fuggles along with Cascade, Centennial and Chinook, and the Fuggles was kind of the quieter more elegant relative of Cascade. To be honest over the years I dialed back on the Fuggles because I didn't use it anywhere near as much as the others. All that related I don't recall it being referred to as "the dirt clod hop"...

Cheers!

The old HBD forum was full of Fuggles=dirt clod jokes/hate. It was amusing.

 

[Bramling Cross]

So about 1.040 maybe?

Hey, that's a big mild!

 

[Bramling Cross]

In addition to the expectations that you mention, which I have no doubt color our flavor perceptions, there have also been serious and continuing changes in hop harvest, kilning, and storage. Even into the 21st century kilning temperatures have continued to fall and refrigeration pre and post pelletizing gets more common. Those fruity aromatics are some of the most volatile when it comes to oxidation.

This article in the December BYO has some great information on this topic:

https://archive.is/AnTqZ

That is a great point. It should also be noted that in the above video, the brewer used French Fuggles. Had no idea that was even a thing. I doubt French terroir suddenly turns Fuggles into Cashmere, though.

 

[Agent]

I blame the whole "dry hop at 2lbs/bbl" for turning the whole thing around.

If we went back to heavy 60 minute boils with the Fug and a dash of 45 and 30 minute additions, who knows!?!

 

[Bramling Cross]

I blame the whole "dry hop at 2lbs/bbl" for turning the whole thing around.

If we went back to heavy 60 minute boils with the Fug and a dash of 45 and 30 minute additions, who knows!?!

Preach, brother! I've got a ton of respect for late and post-boil hop additions. I use them regularly. But if I've learned anything from the late hop addition trend, it's the importance of a solid 60-min addition and the vital quality of a 20-min addition.

As I mention above, I'm deeply skeptical of my own ability to disentangle my design aspirations for a beer and the finished beer I'm actually tasting, but I'm quite certain that a stout 60min addition of a low AA hop followed by an assertive 20min hop makes a lot of difference. I know that way of thinking is currently deeply unpopular, but if I happen to live another twenty years I won't be the least bit surprised to find that the pendulum has swung back in the other direction.

 

[worlddivides]

Joking aside, tasting is really hard. Especially when you're invested in the beer in your glass. I always struggle with myself when I'm writing up my tasting notes, "Am I tasting the beer I designed, or am I really tasting the beer as it actually is in the glass?" I often struggle with that.

So this is something I noticed a while back that really perplexed me. I've read through and watched a ton of Brulosophy's "The Hop Chronicles," but it seems like almost every single hop that they taste-test gets massive "citrus" and "tropical" even when the hop in my mind has zero citrus or tropical aspects. For Fuggle, one of my favorite hops in British-style ales, I can kind of see a little citrus character, but tropical? Seriously, tropical? In Fuggle? Even with citrus, it's not like the GRAPEFRUIT or ORANGE of a lot of more modern American or New Zealand/Australian hops, but it's more like an almost mild lemon character, but with much more of the woody and earthy character.

I do like, though, how on a lot The Hop Chronicles posts, after showing that wheel, the person who did the experiment/taste test goes "I personally don't get any citrus or tropical character from the hop, but..."

But for the specific point I quoted, I'll sometimes design a beer specifically for guava or pineapple character, but once I actually taste it, I'm like "Hm... This isn't really tropical... It's very citrus... but not particularly tropical." (such as a recent IPA I made with Galaxy, Vic Secret, and Citra for whirlpooling and dry hopping and Centennial for the 60 minute bittering hop -- or before it, used Mosaic, Idaho 7, and Citra, but I got mostly citrus character and not really much tropical character at all)

 

[corncob]

Since coming back to brewing, I've tried to do 45 minute boils, but I've now gone back to 60 for almost everything. There's a quality to the bitterness that doesn't come through with a 45 minute boil, no matter how many calculated ibus. It's like jello that is almost, but not quite set up.

Something is just missing.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I do like, though, how on a lot The Hop Chronicles posts, after showing that wheel, the person who did the experiment/taste test goes "I personally don't get any citrus or tropical character from the hop, but..."

But for the specific point I quoted, I'll sometimes design a beer specifically for guava or pineapple character, but once I actually taste it, I'm like "Hm... This isn't really tropical... It's very citrus... but not particularly tropical." (such as a recent IPA I made with Galaxy, Vic Secret, and Citra for whirlpooling and dry hopping and Centennial for the 60 minute bittering hop -- or before it, used Mosaic, Idaho 7, and Citra, but I got mostly citrus character and not really much tropical character at all)

The fact that the entire Brulosophy thing is predicated upon the triangle test, which they always find necessary to dismiss, just kills me. They are the Wile E. Coyote of the home brewing world, quick to take the inevitable anvil to the head and positively undaunted about looking down the barrel of a cannon that failed to fire. Bless 'em!

Your final paragraph gets at the actual meat of what I had in mind behind this post. The language we use to talk about hops is currently badly, terribly broken...which is why I made a point of pointing a finger at the YVH boys' marketing firm. I'm not blaming them, but they sure aren't innocent.

 

[worlddivides]

The fact that the entire Brulosophy thing is predicated upon the triangle test, which they always find necessary to dismiss, just kills me. They are the Wile E. Coyote of the home brewing world, quick to take the inevitable anvil to the head and positively undaunted about looking down the barrel of a cannon that failed to fire. Bless 'em!

Your final paragraph gets at the actual meat of what I had in mind behind this post. The language we use to talk about hops is currently badly, terribly broken...which is why I made a point of pointing a finger at the YVH boys' marketing firm. I'm not blaming them, but they sure aren't innocent.

On the one hand, we kind of do need words to describe these flavors. And none of the descriptors are completely correct, but some of them are pretty close. What I hate more than any of the hop flavor descriptors are the descriptors of fermentation flavors. I'm a massive fan of Brettanomyces, but when everyone was describing it as tasting like "horse hair" or "barnyard" or a bunch of other absolutely vomit-inducing names, it sounded like nothing I would ever want to drink. Of course, I had drank it before without knowing that I had, and while I did get the idea of "funk" and "funky," I think descriptors like "horse hair" have got to be some kind of elaborate prank played by people who hate wild ales and sours. It's even worse than the pretentious flavor descriptors for wines and spirits, the worst of which I've seen was for a high-level vodka where all the reviewer's descriptors were flavors that would be impossible to find in a vodka. Compared to that, at least with hop flavor descriptors, you can see where they're coming from most of the time even if you disagree.

 

[Bramling Cross]

As the son of ranchers and as a guy that has spent a while around stables and horses, it's not too far off the mark. But I see where you're coming from, given that few people have that opportunity anymore. Personally, I think horse sweat is quite pleasant and the midden is, well, there are worse smells in the world. Ever been around a hog shed?

I respect the hell out of hog farmers.

Edit: Don't get me started about vodka. I spent some time in Russia and the amount of vodka BS I imbibed over there will last me a lifetime. It's got nothing to do with the ethanol, it's the water you cut it with to make vodka that makes a difference. Well, that and the fact that Russian vodka is generally garbage.

 

[worlddivides]

As the son of ranchers and as a guy that has spent a while around stables and horses, it's not too far off the mark. But I see where you're coming from, given that few people have that opportunity anymore. Personally, I think horse sweat is quite pleasant and the midden is, well, there are worse smells in the world. Ever been around a hog shed?

I respect the hell out of hog farmers.

Edit: Don't get me started about vodka. I spent some time in Russia and the amount of vodka BS I imbibed over there will last me a lifetime. It's got nothing to do with the ethanol, it's the water you cut it with to make vodka that makes a difference. Well, that and the fact that Russian vodka is generally garbage.

My grandfather owned a farm (with goats, sheep, chickens, and horses - no cows or pigs, though) and I spent a lot of time on it as a kid. My aunt owned 2 horses. I've also been to other farms that had cows and pigs, though. Also often went hunting with my dad and grandfather. So yeah, I've spent a decent amount of time on farms and in stables and around horses. AFTER THE FACT, I could kind of see what they were referring to, but it still seems like a horrible choice of words. And with "barnyard" as a descriptor for Brett. You can kind of be like "Yeah, barnyard, right." But if you stop and think about it, which smell? Manure? Hay? Dust? Mustiness? Animal hair and fur? Animal urine? No matter how you flip it, there's nothing you would think "Yeah, I want that in my beer." But I love Brettanomyces. It's awesome. I feel like you do need to kind of bend over backwards to make it fit. And I DO get where they're coming from. Brett has a kind of wild, funky feel to it. With "leather" and "smoky" and "cheesy" and "spicy" and so on, I can see those flavors and they make sense. Then again, maybe to some people, Brett does remind them of manure.

I remember one reviewer describing a vodka flavor as "fresh raspberries." This wasn't a flavored vodka. It was a regular, triple-filtered vodka. There was no way. For another, they described "rich caramel." Vodka like that has been filtered so much that there's very few esters left. It's essentially ethanol in water. If they think it tastes like fresh raspberries or rich caramel, they've gotta be on some kind of hallucinogenic drug.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I get you, man. It's really frustrating trying to find the right words for things that we find to be so important to ourselves. It's maddening having these wildly vivid senses that instantly interface with lush memories and yet we have so few words with which to describe them.

I suppose if we were to take this discussion further, we'd need to start invoking the names of long-dead Europeans. Personally, I'm not up for that. I used to take that very seriously, but that's in my past now.

But I really enjoyed our discussion and I thank you for the time we've spent together.

It's been a joy.

Sincerely, thank you.

PS: And you're right about vodka. It's all a scam!