Helios Hops: Stop Me Before It's Too Late

[AlexKay]

Anybody used this hop? It's described as "resinous, spicy, and floral," but smelling it I get skunk and green onion. I do like to try new things, so at the moment I'm planning on forging ahead, but if anyone has experience to share...

 

[day_trippr]

I haven't used it (or even heard of it) and had to look around for a Helios character sheet. The Beer Maverick hop tool I usually reference hasn't gotten to their chart yet, but I found one on Hopsteiner...

I don't see skunk or green onion. Could be a red flag wrt quality...

Cheers!

 

[rootAndBoom]

Anybody used this hop? It's described as "resinous, spicy, and floral," but smelling it I get skunk and green onion. I do like to try new things, so at the moment I'm planning on forging ahead, but if anyone has experience to share...

Haven't used this hop but have learned to trust my nose on some of those less desirable aromas.

Maybe dry hop Bud Light with a few pellets to see what you think before doing a bigger brew?

 

[lumpher]

Sounds like those have been exposed to too much direct sunlight. If anything, I'd go with rootandboom's suggestion to add a couple pellets to a known beer and see what happens to the taste before I risked an entire batch.

 

[AlexKay]

I went ahead with it. Small batch (2.5 gallons). I'll report back in a couple of weeks when I get the first taste.

I used to make hop seltzer a lot and would use it to screen new types. I need to get back into doing that...

 

[AlexKay]

I'm shocked. Despite the onion, I put it in a schwarzbier, and tasting it two weeks later ... it has a very restrained hop aroma, mostly noble, spicy, maybe with a touch of pine. Not at all what I thought I'd get, but I'm happy, and it works very well for the beer.

I thought it might ruin the batch, and instead, it's really a rather nice schwarz.

Edit: I suppose I should say "Schwarzbier-inspired American dark lager." Details: 0.35 g/L @ 60 (16.6% AA), 1 g/L at flameout.