Love of Columbus hops

[MattHollingsworth]

I first used Columbus hops to make a single hop beer 13 years ago, and loved them. Back then, they became one of my favorite hops and I used them quite a lot. Along with Crystal and Chinook, I'd say they were one of my main hops in the old days.

Fast forward to 2 years ago when I restarted brewing after a 7 year hiatus. In my down time, a lot of new hops gained prominence and I found myself exploring a lot of the newer hops. Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra spring to mind. I love all of those. Awesome hops.

I had been so busy with all of these new hops that I just hadn't gotten back to Columbus for anything other than bittering. But then 4 weeks ago, I brewed a single hop beer again with Columbus. I have lots of fermentations in various stages, mead and beer, so I just hadn't had the chance to sample this pale ale. I had been planning to dry hop it. So, I was boiling my mesh bag and ss nuts to weigh it down and went and drew a sample.

The beer is so awesome as is that I decided to skip dry hopping. Blasphemy, I know. But the hop character is just so great I love it as is.

The aroma is very "American" in character. Citrus and that overall "American" character that is sometimes just hard for me to nail down with words. And it's a nice aroma. But the flavor is where it really shines. It's just got something special for me that makes it stand out from Cascade or Centennial or the other American citrus hops. It's a unique flavor. I hadn't tasted it in some years, but upon tasting the beer, I immediately remembered my old friend.

Very happy with this beer.

Anyway, I'm going to design an APA now using Columbus for flavor and likely Nelson Sauvin for aroma, which is amongst my favorites of the new hops.

All of these great hops we have these days is one of the reasons I keep finding myself brewing APAs. I've made a number of them with the same yeast, Wyeast 1318, and same malt from Croatia and differing the hops and the resulting beers are so different.

What a great hobby. Cheers!

 

[-TH-]

Have you ever dry hopped with it? I accidentally bought 2oz of columbus by mistake - I meant to get centennial which is what I usually use for my IPA. I was going to run back to the LHBS to get centennial sometime this week but now I'm wondering if I should just use the columbus.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Have you ever dry hopped with it? I accidentally bought 2oz of columbus by mistake - I meant to get centennial which is what I usually use for my IPA. I was going to run back to the LHBS to get centennial sometime this week but now I'm wondering if I should just use the columbus.

I have, but it's been more than ten years since I have, so I can't give an accurate account of it for dry hopping. From my memory though, it was great. I don't think it could hurt to give it a go. It's not one of those overly grassy hops or anything.

Dunno if you have access to Anderson Valley Hop Ottin' IPA, but from what I remember it's a big Columbus IPA.

And I've used Columbus in a number of IPAs including the one in my recipe section called "Big Hoppy IPA". That one won 3 gold medals and had Columbus throughout including dry hops.