Native Hops

[bhuener]

Hello all,
First off I have to say this site is a great resource. I wish I would have discovered it sooner!

I couple years ago I bought my dad Brewer's Best brewing kit. We've brewed 4 batches, all made from kits. We've had great luck but I think its time we start experimenting a little more. Last summer we discovered naturally growing native hops that grow in some woods where we've hunted deer and partridge. My question is: can one brew beer with "wild" hops or are the hops used for beer making a completely different animal? And if these can be used for making beer, is there any way of knowing what type of hops they would be comparable to? I imagine we would want to pare them with appropriate ingredients.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help!

-Ben

 

[mlg5039]

It might take some experimentation to determine the characteristics of the wild hops, but I say go for it. You might develop something beautiful.

 

[bob1852]

I made a beer with a wild hop from Arizona, and it didn't come out very good. It was drinkable - but the hops seemed to be very low AA% and didn't bring much flavor or aroma either.

Cool idea, but difficult to turn into something positive...at least in my experience...

 

[tcory77]

Without knowing the AA% of the hops it is hard to make a good brew. It would all be a crapshoot in other words. For bittering I would buy some hops that you knew the AA% and maybe use the wild hops for flavor hops and dry hopping if you choose to do that. That way you know where your bittering level will be and you can experiment with the flavor and aroma of the wild hops.

Does that make sense? I mean you could always just experiment all the way around, but you might be really disappointed because you don't know the AA%. Using the wild hops for flavor and aroma is just a lot less risky.

Just my 2 cents.

I grew cascades this year and I won't use them for bittering, only flavor and aroma. Mainly because I don't know the AA%. I know a general range for them, but still don't want to chance a bad brew because they were not the AA% I thought they were.

 

[beretta]

Why don't you brew up a mini batch? Buy some dry malt, and enough to a gallon of wort. I'd do something like this:

1 lb dry malt extract
1 gallon of water
.2 oz of dried homegrown hops ( or about 1oz of live, fresh picked homegrown )

Let it boil for an hour and taste the wort. Does the bitter balance out the malt? Should you add more or less hops for a bigger batch? Let your taste buds do the walking. If your satisfied that your hops will work (I'm sure the correct amount will...) brew a real size batch, and scale everything up by 5x.

 

[bhuener]

Cool, thanks for the info guys!

 

[japhroaig]

beretta is right, use your taste buds. heck, if you are food-minded just boil some hops in a mug in your microwave. give it a taste. hops can have a huge range of flavor, so give it a try--just don't count on being able to repeat a batch next year

 

[david_42]

There's a real good chance that the wild hops are feral, so they might work. There are feral hops all over the place here, mostly Fuggle.