One hop beers.

[alanwelam]

So I'm working on a project of brewing a series of one hop beers. I wanted to see if anyone else had a good experience with this and wanted to offer up suggestions for hops to use. Here are the ones I've already got fermenting:
Cascade
Saaz
Citra
Simcoe
Medley planned...

Any other suggestions?

 

[mendesm]

You don't mention anything about using just one type of malt with your single hop series, so this may not be what you want, but if you search the forum for "SMaSH" might get you on your way.

Just in case: SMaSH => Single Malt Single Hop.

 

[neosapien]

I've started to really enjoy making single hop beers with the noble hops. Nice, quiet 1.040 beers with a simple, understated hop choice in it. I just make 1 gal batches of them. It has really helped me to hone my brewing process since the off-flavors have no place to hide. I like the quieter hops though. Without the big bold flavors, I learn more about balancing complex flavors.

This is a fantastic resource for learning about the compounds in hops, and what they contribute: http://beerlegends.com/hops-varieties

It has really helped me design better beers knowing the composition of oils in different varieties of hops.

 

[SteveLikesBeer]

I've been working my way through APA's that way. My Chinook APA kicked the other day and I have a Citra APA past ferm in a bucket (waiting for keg space/bottles).

For me it's worked well but I'm looking to learn more about the bittering, flavoring and dry hopping results of each hop I use.

I'd recommend throwing Chinook in there.

 

[abrix]

Hallertauer was eye-opening for me. We used it in a single-hop helles, and it helped me understand why Cascade was being considered by breeding programs back in the day.

We've also done single-hop English bitters with Brewer's Gold and Fuggles. I liked both quite a bit.

 

[gometz]

I am working on an all-Hallertau Mittelfruh APA right now as a session beer.

 

[masskrug]

Centennial is a good single hop.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/bells-two-hearted-ale-clone-close-they-come-91488/

 

[alanwelam]

Wow guys. Awesome suggestions. The recipe I'm using is:

#6 light dme
#.5 crystal 60
#.5 crystal 120

Hops go in at:
60 (1 oz unless high alpha, then .5)
20 (same as first)
5 (double first)
And 1 oz in secondary for thirty days.

 

[gometz]

30 day secondary dry hopping? Not sure if there is much benefit to anything longer than maybe 10 days.

 

[TyTanium]

Check out this thread. We did this last February.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/twelve-hopostles-154488/

 

[one-L]

+1 on the Centennial, and that two hearted clone recipe. Drinking my second batch of that right now and its excellent.

 

[ICWiener]

You might want to go 2 oz in dry hop, and scale it back to 7-14 days. 30 days is just waiting around.

Try one with Mosaic! I just bottled a Mosaic APA a few weeks back and it's really, really good.

 

[Yooper]

I'd recommend dryhopping for 5 days (not 30!) for peak flavor and aroma.

For single hop beers, there are lots of ways to go. To get a distinct "German ale" flavor, using hallertauer or tettnanger is perfect. For an English APA, East Kent Goldings are THE definitive English hop flavor and aroma.

For American APAs, I would recommend centennial, amarillo, chinook, and willamette. Willamette is "Englishy" tasting, so that could be an EPA/APA hybrid and it'd be really good in your base recipe.

 

[STB]

I've done an English Pale ale with willamette that was good and a Cali Common typically just uses Northern Brewer.

 

[alanwelam]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I've really enjoyed this thread. I think I'm gonna scrap Medley for now as it's basically a daughter of Simcoe, and I'd like a little more variety. Centennial got high reviews, so I'm replacing Medley with Centennial. This should give a good variety, and I may add one more in the Noble hop variety.

 

[Glynn]

I picked up a growler of citra ipa last night from my local brewpub, man it was tasty.

 

[NathPowe]

The single hop beers are really fun and tasty. Nice work on doing a whole fleet of them. I do an all Mosaic beer as well and it's fantastic. Actually just kegged a fresh batch of it. Definitely worth trying. I'd also recommend a much shorter dry-hop (if I'm dry-hopping at room temp. I generally do 4 or 5 days), and maybe trying 2oz instead. With 1oz for 30 days, it seems fairly possible that whatever aroma you're gaining will have faded considerably by the time you drink it. Just my $0.02 though. Good luck on the project and enjoy the beers.

 

[BigFloyd]

Y'all are now making me thirsty for those two cases of Viarillo (Vienna/Amarillo) SMASH I have bottle conditioning right now.

Must......wait....one.....more....weeeeeeek.

 

[frenchie]

New Zealand Hops!

 

[ICWiener]

I do an all Mosaic beer as well and it's fantastic.

Isn't it great? The thing I like about Mosaic is it's complexity. It seems like a mix of hops, even if you use it on it's own.