Hops for pale ale-ish brew?

[Wakeboarder]

I am brewing a 60/40 MO and Vienna pale ale type beer.

What hops should I try for this brew?

 

[Bramling Cross]

Which yeast are you using? Give us a brief idea of how you want the beer to turn out, something as general as "American," "German," or "UK" would be a great help.

 

[Wakeboarder]

Which yeast are you using? Give us a brief idea of how you want the beer to turn out, something as general as "American," "German," or "UK" would be a great help.

I have Nottingham, US05, and Bell’s house yeast.

I have no idea- these were leftover grains from other beers and want to experiment

 

[Steveruch]

Go with whatever hops you personally like.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

What hops should I try for this brew?

Do you have any hops on hand, or do you need to purchase hops? If purchasing, what selection of hops does your vendor stock? There are over 200 hop varieties available, and all have their own merits.

Maybe scroll through this thread and pick some you want to try: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/top-5-must-have-hops.732756/

 

[Wakeboarder]

Do you have any hops on hand, or do you need to purchase hops? If purchasing, what selection of hops does your vendor stock? There are over 200 hop varieties available, and all have their own merits.

Maybe scroll through this thread and pick some you want to try: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/top-5-must-have-hops.732756/

I have a bunch and can order them online.

What hops would you personally use for this grain bill?

 

[Bramling Cross]

Do you like Bell's Two Hearted ale? If so, use the Bell's strain with your grist and hop with Centennial. If I remember correctly, Two Hearted has an assertive C-40 component, so you may want to add a .5lb of C-40 if you have it available. This certainly won't be a clone, but it absolutely will be within the orbit of Two Hearted.

Additionally, you could do the classic Cascades at 60min, 5min, and knock out for a more bready, less sweet take on the classic 90's pale ale.

It sounds like you have no scarcity of options, so it's a great opportunity to learn. I hope you have fun with it!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

What hops would you personally use for this grain bill?

I would not just throw random grains, hops and yeast together. I would start with an idea of what I wanted and pick ingredients to match that. If you are starting with that grain bill, what ABV do you want? You could make a characterful 4% beer, or a malty 9% beer. Say I wanted a Session IPA style beer, I might go with Simcoe and Centennial and US-05 or Bell's. If I wanted an English character, go for EKG and Nottingham. If I wanted a bigger malty beer, maybe 20 IBUs of a generic hop like Magnum at the start of the boil with any of those yeast choices.

If you "want to experiment", I would suggest limiting the number of unknowns. While it can be fun to toss together a new grain bill, new yeast, and new hop, it also makes it very difficult to pick out the impact of each ingredient. I would pick a hop and yeast that you have experience with.

 

[bwible]

I would not just throw random grains, hops and yeast together. I would start with an idea of what I wanted and pick ingredients to match that. If you are starting with that grain bill, what ABV do you want? You could make a characterful 4% beer, or a malty 9% beer. Say I wanted a Session IPA style beer, I might go with Simcoe and Centennial and US-05 or Bell's. If I wanted an English character, go for EKG and Nottingham. If I wanted a bigger malty beer, maybe 20 IBUs of a generic hop like Magnum at the start of the boil with any of those yeast choices.

If you "want to experiment", I would suggest limiting the number of unknowns. While it can be fun to toss together a new grain bill, new yeast, and new hop, it also makes it very difficult to pick out the impact of each ingredient. I would pick a hop and yeast that you have experience with.

Thats how I made some of my best Brown Ales ever. Kitchen sink. By gathering up all the little leftover bags and packages that have a few ounces of this and a little of that, the unidentified bag the label fell off of or the sharpie wiped off of, all the little odds and ends bits, and combining them with whatever base malt I had.

Yes, I agree to a point its not totally random, you have a percentage of base malts and a percentage of the mixed leftovers. You go with a strategy, in my case American Brown or Texas Brown hopping and yeast. And put that into your recipe calculator - even if you have to guess what something is, you’ll be close.

OP has been a member since 2013, so probably not looking for newbie advice.

Use what you like - look back on old recipes and make one again you really enjoyed. Or change the recipe to try something new.

You certainly can’t go wrong with old school C family hops - Columbus or Chinook, Centennial, Cascade, Citra, etc if you want to go American pale.

Some slightly newer ones would include Mosaic and Simcoe. There are so many new ones now its hard for anybody to keep up.

I’ve found many of the British hops hard to come by the past couple years. I’m a big fan of First Gold.

As others suggested, pick a strategy and go with that. IPA, American Pale Ale, British Pale Ale. I read recently of people making German IPA using all German grains and hops.

But definitely have a strategy so you don’t end up with a dumper.

 

[Kickass]

Skip the hops, it’s almost the holiday season, use juniper and pine needles!

 

[redrocker652002]

I use Cascade a lot. Simcoe is another fave. My brew today is going to be a Simcoe hopped ale with MO, 2 row and a bit of crystal 20. I have done it once before and it came out really good

 

[HM-2]

What have you got to hand? That grain bill says "West Coast pale" to me so I'd be dropping 35 IBU of Centennial split between 30, 15 and 5 minutes additions with another 10 IBU or so split between Centennial and something like Citra, El Dorado or Idaho 7 in the whirlpool.

Hardly "experimental" but it'll make a super crushable American pale.

 

[Zanatrik]

I did a similar grist beer with mandarina bavaria and really enjoyed it.