Experiment brewing with 5 different hop varieties

BUDFORCE

I do remember posting about the idea of this previously but I couldnt find the thread.

Anyway, I ordered 5 lots of Black Rock Pale Ale kit in January 2017, 5 different varieties of the Charles Farm hop pellets (100g):

Sterling (US), Galena (US), Magnum (German), Admiral (US), Target (UK)

The aim was, to try and get some kind of baseline control so I could test out each different variety of hop and see what the differences are. These were all brewed (and mostly drank) over 2017 but I saved a bottle of each one.

This is however far from scientific, brewing being a natural process, and the fact that they have different ages, varying from about a year to around 6 months, but within reason is the best I could do. The other thing is flavour is subjective, and difficult to describe - kinda like telling someone who has never seen before the difference between the colour red and blue, but I'll give it a go:

Sterling:

By far the mildest of the 5, in taste fragrance etc, but also pleasant to drink. I would say this one tastes like any regular ale (woodfordes wherry or similar) sort of generic tasting ale - almost lagery actually.

Target:

Slightly bitter, and a bit more fragrant, stronger tasting in general than the Sterling but similar. A bit of a bitter aftertaste also.

Galena:

After tasting this with the other 4, I don't like this one at all, it tastes almost soapy, without really adding any bitterness or flavour, doesn't smell great either.

Admiral:

Lots of fragrance and aroma but very bitter, almost harsh tasting. I dont like this one either.

Magnum:

Quite well balanced, similar to the Sterling, slightly more flavour, my favourite of the 5.


To summarise though, the experiment in my opinion was a complete fail. I have tried adding hops in the same quantities to other kits - goes very well with Coopers Brew of A IPA kit for example. I had also tried one of the Black Rock kits previously, although not this one (may have been the bitter kit, I cant remember its going back about 18 months now) and it was good, however, the Black Rock Pale Ale kit I used as a base really isn't great at all. It's very pale and has no real maltyness to it, so doesn't hold the flavour of added hops well at all. I wish I had tried it first before going ahead and buying 5 lots to experiment with, but nevermind.

Also I believe when I was bottling the batch with the Admiral hops I knocked the primary fermentation vessel which I am guessing knocked up some of the hops in to the bottle which would account for the bitterness, so probably is not a fair test with this one and not a good representation of this hop variety. I ended up throwing about a 3rd of this batch away.

And... after pouring these 5 pints, I have tasted a bit of each one, but they will definately not be worth the headache I will get from drinking them all this evening, so forgive me, but the rest is going down the sink.

Back to my keg of Bulldog Brews Bad Cat - now that is a fine beer.