Good evening! Long time no see!
I hope you are doing well over there in lockdown UK. In Germany it is all good, people are crazy and shouting at each other a lot, so pretty much normal daylie routine everywhere.
I completely agree with what you say. One thing I would like to add is that for this particular beer, I had a particular flavour in mind. Noble hops will all go into that direction and it will differ only slightly from the original version if there would be, for example, saaz used, instead of goldings. However, I feel a bit like hops that go more into other directions, might shift the beer into a completely different direction. Not necessarily a bad one though, but not too close to the original version. And the original version really is worth being brewed, never ever brewed a beer like this again.... unfortunately.
I just had one of my second brew here in germany, first one was brewed with wlp 002 because I couldn#t get pub, and it was a dumper. Fermented too hot, tasted ab bit like fusels and it gave me the headache from hell the next day after only having two.
My new brew was fermented cooler and with wlp 041 pacific ale, much better, no detectable fusels, but not british at all. Tastes a bit like US05 on steroids regarding ester expression. Not bad, but not what I am looking for. Next one will be an oldschool Manchester inspired golden ale. Dry, 40 Ibus, only pale malt and sugar plus safale04 at lower temperatures.
Wish me luck!