Pine Flavored Hops

[ILBMF]

OK, what hop in your opinion has the most PINE like aroma/flavor for dry hopping? One of my beer drinking buds wants me to make an IPA with a huge pine nose and flavor/aroma. I want to sock it to him!

I'm used to using Simcoe, Citra, Palisade, Amarillo, CTZ, Horizon and the like mainly for dry hopping purposes

 

[SilverZero]

Simcoe or Chinook.

 

[duboman]

Northern brewer hops produce some great pine notes

 

[ttumotion]

I use a Chinook and get some good pine...

 

[ABrewingApe]

Have you considered using actual pine as well, or are you keen to get the flavor from just hops?

 

[jbsg02]

15 minute pine cone addition. just kidding

 

[SilverZero]

15 minute pine cone addition. just kidding

Are you? Pine resin might not be a bad addition if it was well-balanced. Maybe some green pine needles. It wouldn't be the strangest thing people have added to their beer. (I'm looking at you, pumpkin.)

 

[agentEhrman]

Simcoe does it for me

 

[Scoggin]

chinooks are easily the most Pine-ey hops i've used

 

[PanzerBanana]

I wouldn't put pine resin in beer. Pine needles however is a different story. Fresh spruce tips would be a nice addition to the right beer. I can't recall the name but there's a brewery in Alaska that makes a spruce beer.

You could also use some juniper berries.

 

[JonM]

I've heard, but can't say from my own experience, that a combination of chinook and cascade is really piney and really good.

 

[ILBMF]

I want to stick with hops only. I'm leaning to using a cascade chinook mix. I have used cascade and want to try to keep the cohumulone percentages down too. They are both a bit high in that respect. Northern brewer has lower cohumulone % which I haven't tried yet.

Simcoe, my all time favorite doesn't do pine for me. I get lots of grapefruit, peachy, cat piss notes from simcoe.

What do you guys taste in a good batch of Nugget Nectar??? This years batch was pure $hit...I'm talking about a batch like last year's.

 

[Calichusetts]

Harpoon does a Spruce tip ale with chinook that is simply lights out

 

[Grantman1]

I just dry hopped my last IPA with only Chinook and cascade, hoping for some good piney aroma. Its finishing right now, will let you know how it turns out .

 

[passedpawn]

chinook. I'm sipping a all-chinook rye IIPA right now.

 

[Homercidal]

Chinnok and Simcoe, although I made a Chinook SMaSH not long ago and I didn't get as much pine resin flavor and aroma as I would have liked.

And I've had a spruce ale from Alaskan Brewing that was great! not at all what I expected, but delicious.

 

[Bamsdealer]

I want to stick with hops only. I'm leaning to using a cascade chinook mix. I have used cascade and want to try to keep the cohumulone percentages down too. They are both a bit high in that respect. Northern brewer has lower cohumulone % which I haven't tried yet.

Simcoe, my all time favorite doesn't do pine for me. I get lots of grapefruit, peachy, cat piss notes from simcoe.

What do you guys taste in a good batch of Nugget Nectar??? This years batch was pure $hit...I'm talking about a batch like last year's.

My second case of nugget was subpar... It had a march date on it. The first was everything I remembered from years past and was bottled in feb. I don't know exactly what I taste in nugget, but it's an amazing balance of hop flavor and aroma from beginning to end with just the right amount of malt sweetness to balance out the brew. One of my all time favorites.

Troegs just moved their brewery which might be responsible for their inconsistency this year.

 

[Bamsdealer]

I wouldn't put pine resin in beer. Pine needles however is a different story. Fresh spruce tips would be a nice addition to the right beer. I can't recall the name but there's a brewery in Alaska that makes a spruce beer.

You could also use some juniper berries.

Philadelphia brewing co does a spruce beer and uses pine needles. Havent had the chance to try it but a friend of mine said it was good. I recall him saying that they may have completely replaced all hops with pine, but I could be wrong. Not a fan of their brews but this is one I'd like to try.

 

[ktblunden]

I can't recall the name but there's a brewery in Alaska that makes a spruce beer.

Alaskan Brewing

FYI, if you ever visit Juneau it's well worth the trip to the brewery. They don't have a "tour" so to speak, but they do tell you the history of the company and the brewery and let you taste pretty much whatever you want.

 

[ILBMF]

My second case of nugget was subpar... It had a march date on it. The first was everything I remembered from years past and was bottled in feb. I don't know exactly what I taste in nugget, but it's an amazing balance of hop flavor and aroma from beginning to end with just the right amount of malt sweetness to balance out the brew. One of my all time favorites.

Troegs just moved their brewery which might be responsible for their inconsistency this year.

Yes, I plan to visit the new brewery soon. It seems that Troegs Nugget Nectar suffers every other year or so. It was way too bitter with no sweet hop notes a couple of years ago. I was thinking the new facility may be the culprit, but how bad can you screw up a beer in a great recipe using a new German system that's sanitary and state of the art? I think they are having trouble getting the hop varieties or the quality of the hops was off.

I think you guys have convinced me to do an all Chinook dry hop or maybe mostly Chinook for the pine like notes. I do remember using Chinook once and was pleased with the smell of the hops in the bag.

 

[MaynardX]

+ to the chinook for pine. U can't go wrong.

 

[Homercidal]

Although I didn't' get as much pine as I wanted from my Chinook SMaSH, it was still a very tasty beer. Your perception of pine might be different from mine own as well. I say go for it!

 

[ILBMF]

Chinook it is. Thanks guys

 

[tuskenraider]

Simcoe, my all time favorite doesn't do pine for me. I get lots of grapefruit, peachy, cat piss notes from simcoe.

Interesting. It is being mentioned a lot here, but hey, every pallate is different. I just did a Simcoe SMaSH and it is lots of pine to the wife and I.

 

[BigRob]

I don't get a lot of pine from Simcoe or Northern Brewer to be honest. That's not to say that I don't enjoy them (Simcoe moreso than Northern Brewer).

 

[captianoats]

Not to take us too off topic, but pilgrims sometimes used pine needles for their new world beers.

http://www.beerinstitute.org/tier.asp?bid=141

 

[blitzcreeg]

Historic ales of Scotland use pine needles in a beer called ALBA and it is fanstastic. I believe thats gaelic for pine. I also have a favorite pine used beer by nova scotia's Garrison brewery. Im going to be trying pine needles in an upcoming brew myself just not sure when and what

 

[PhelanKA7]

Interesting. It is being mentioned a lot here, but hey, every pallate is different. I just did a Simcoe SMaSH and it is lots of pine to the wife and I.

I think all hops have some pine notes. That is the nature of the beast as they say but some are dominated by it and others dominated by other more pronounced notes like citrus. Simcoe is so high in AA that while those piney resins present themselves most people find that citrus is what dominates. Taste /smell is one of those senses that people will always interpret differently though so I am not here to discredit what you are saying.

Another thing could be (and I don't know this for sure) but I wonder if hops can change their characteristics from citrus to pine or vice versa if significantly aged or improperly stored? Maybe someone more knowledgeable could answer that.

 

[Calichusetts]

Not to take us too off topic, but pilgrims sometimes used pine needles for their new world beers.

http://www.beerinstitute.org/tier.asp?bid=141

+1 for Plymouth Brewing! I call my "brewery" Pilgrim Abbey. Very suprised that Mayflower hasn't tried on of these yet. They put quotes from the Pilgrims writing about their beer on their website and such. Nice link!

 

[Journey]

I agree with Chinook for piney.

I think all hops have some pine notes. That is the nature of the beast as they say but some are dominated by it and others dominated by other more pronounced notes like citrus. Simcoe is so high in AA that while those piney resins present themselves most people find that citrus is what dominates. Taste /smell is one of those senses that people will always interpret differently though so I am not here to discredit what you are saying.

Another thing could be (and I don't know this for sure) but I wonder if hops can change their characteristics from citrus to pine or vice versa if significantly aged or improperly stored? Maybe someone more knowledgeable could answer that.

PhelanKA7-

I realize this is an extremely late response to your thesis about hop characteristics, but I figured better late than never. First off, this is my first post, but I am a long time stalker and I greatly value all the wisdom and help on this site. This last spring I established a 1/4 acre hop farm and I feel that growing hops allowed me to gain appreciation and some hands on insight in regards to hop aroma. This is simply my personal experience, but I believe that you are absolutely correct about hop characteristics changing due to age and storage. In fact I noticed that my row of Summit hops varied from a onion/garlic aroma to a wonderful tangerine. Some plants had an incredible aroma and others were muddy or unfavorable. The harvest/storage was by far the trickiest aspect of growing. During the short drying/curing process I noted that some of the Columbus changed from spicy to dank and all of my Chinook changed from a strong grapefruit aroma to an aggressive pine smell with a light citrus backbone. This was certainly an odd experience for me and I have even more respect for the hop farmers of the world.

I apologize for going so far off topic.

Cheers