Reverend JC
2500 gallons year to date
Let me be the first in this delicious thread to ask, beg, plea for your old hops so that I can make a lambic.
They will just be kind of stale. A bit grassy, but none of the other characteristics that you find when you open a fresh bag and sniff in all of those wonderful aromas.
but not cheesy.
yeah. Cheese=bad
there really isn't much need to use aged hops unless you are spontaneously fermenting. the idea is to use a lot of hops, debittered from aging, to get the maximum amount of preservative effect and limit unwanted wild bugs. your airlock will take care of that. just use a small amount of low alpha hops.
I disagree. The traditional brewers of lambics would just use the low alpha hops then. Sure it can be done, but why not try to find the authentic hops.
they didn't even know what alpha acids were, let alone have access to a multitude of hop varieties.
even low alpha acid hops would add way too much bitterness at the quantities needed to ward off infections during spontaneous fermentation. if you are not spontaneously fermenting, you don't need the preservative effect.
i doubt that any contribution in terms of hop flavor would be perceptible in a properly aged lambic, as the yeast profile should absolutely dominate all other characteristics.
sure, if you have access to aged hops, go for it. but it's very hard to find properly aged hops unless you age them yourself, which is a noble goal. i'm simply trying to point out that it probably isn't worth worrying about if you can't get them.
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