Name that Hops!

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ZenBrew

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Hi all -

I just started homebrewing this year, but 2 years ago I planted a couple hops vines. At that time I didn't know there were different varieties of hops, and the vines we bought were called "common hops". Now that I'm brewing and have a halfway decent harvest, I'd love to brew with them, but I don't know what kind they are! Here are some pictures of them. Hopefully someopne can help me identify them or tell me someone that can help me identify them.

Thanks in advance!

Pictures:
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Not much to say, except it isn't possible. If you purchased them at a nursery, they could be just about anything.

If you like how they smell, think about what kind of beer they would taste good in. Use a known hop for bittering.

Dig them up and plant known varieties next spring. At least you know hops grow well in your yard.
 
Really no way to tell for sure what they are.

You can make a hop tea by steeping some cones in warm water- that would give you some idea what you're get from them. There are ways to compute alpha acid units of homegrown hops, but it's really a lot less trouble to use commercial for bittering and homegrown for aroma.
 
Dwarven, you mentioned making a "hop tea". That is a great idea! I am in the same boat as in unknown variety with lots of cones. Too much of a nice established plant to pull up so shes a keeper. Today I will make a "hop tea" and check the aroma at 5, 10 and 15 minutes into the boil then let er go for an hour and see what she does for bittering. It may not work but should make the house smell nice for awhile. And day trippr, Phred is already taken.:D
 
Turns out Phred is a bittering hop. I took about 12 cones and a qt of water started to boil some aroma but not really what I was hoping for. Boiled for about 50 minutes, let cool and tasted about 1/4 teaspoon of the tea. My face about imploded! Yep, Phred is a bittering hop.
 
hopmomma said:
I believe the second picture is chinook. An aromatic hop I believe.

Also I would guess the first picture to be a willamette. I referenced using an application called the hop guide on my droid. Good app, provides pictures and similarities and descriptions of hops, both domestic and otherwise. The third picture of the hop looks really interesting. If I can identify it, ill let you know. Good luck
 
I believe the second picture is chinook. An aromatic hop I believe.

fwiw, Chinook is generally considered a bittering hop. That said, I enjoy the residual flavor that Chinook provides.

Also fwiw, I grew four Chinook plants, harvested almost a pound of cones and still have a bunch more on the bines, and those cones don't look like mine...

Cheers!
 
I have a Mt. Hood hop vine and the cones look exactly like yours. Mt. Hood is a Hallertau hybrid. I would venture to guess that it's one or the other.
 
I believe the second picture is chinook. An aromatic hop I believe.

No way is that a Chinook.

Are people just throwing out hop names in this thread? You REALLY CANNOT identify hops from leaf shape and cone structure alone.

I'll go out on my bines and take 3 pictures of leaves on the same bine that all look different and grab 2 cones from the same bine that display very different characteristics in terms of size/shape. There simply is not such a uniform growth habit that is unique from strain to strain to allow such simplistic identification.
 
day_trippr said:
fwiw, Chinook is generally considered a bittering hop. That said, I enjoy the residual flavor that Chinook provides.

Also fwiw, I grew four Chinook plants, harvested almost a pound of cones and still have a bunch more on the bines, and those cones don't look like mine...

Cheers!

Thanks. I'm still new to this. Just guessing
 
Willamette is a low AA% aroma/flavor hop. Not a lot of bittering there...I've used it before. I wonder,are those mature cones?
 
First, thanks to everyone for replying! This is clearly a great forum as it is so active!

I must have been unclear as all four pictures are the same variety of hop.

In addition to posting on here, I also contacted Alpha Analytics to see if they could help me identify these hops. Based on what they said, I think it would be very hard to identify a hop variety from looking at the cones alone, but it is part of the testing for identification! They said from the pictures they'd guess they are Willamette hops, but to truly know I'd need to send in 100-200g dried for an alpha acid content test and do a sensory (smell, I'd suspect) test to find out what they are. I think if they don't know the exact variety after all that testing they'd at least be able to tell me if it would be good for bittering or aroma.

However, even though I got more hops than last year I only had 80g dried. So, I decided to make some tea out of it as suggested it on this thread. I compared that tea to some tea made with Cascade hops. I was born without the ability to taste bitter, so I had to rely on my wife for this test... She said the hop tea from our hops was so bitter she couldn't even swallow it. However, she was able to swallow the tea made from the Cascade hops. Those cascade hops were labeled as having 7.9% AA, so I'd assume my hops probably have more AA than that. Given it was more bitter than the Cascade hops tea, I doubt it is a Willamette...

Given the results from the tea would I be better off using my hops as a bittering hops? When I have a big enough crop to get a lab test done, I think I will. But in the mean time I want to use what I have!
 
Dude, how can you call yourself Zenbrew and worry about things like numbers and names? Make a few beers tell people they can't make this beer because you don't know what's in it. That is the Way of the Good Beer.

:)
 
Lol. Good point. Although, the "Zen" doesn't have much to do with eastern Zen, and I'm an engineer so I love numbers. It's my nature. :)

Dude, how can you call yourself Zenbrew and worry about things like numbers and names? Make a few beers tell people they can't make this beer because you don't know what's in it. That is the Way of the Good Beer.

:)
 
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