Picked up 8oz of each (Jester, Archer, and Target). Not quite sure what to do with them, as their descriptions make them sound a little more American than British. Anyone have experience with them? Possibly an IPA with one of the yeasts I have on hand: WLP023 Burton Ale, WLP066 London Fog, WLP009 East Coast Ale, or Imperial A38 Juice.
Target is a cousin of Challenger that was released in 1972 and became very popular with growers for its disease resistance, particularly to wilt. So you find it a lot in commercial recipes from the 1970s and 1980s when it was the highest-alpha hop generally available in the UK, but not much in modern recipes. It became particularly popular in Belgium, it got up to something like 70% of their acreage from memory, so it's certainly authentic for pretty much any Belgian style and that might be a good route to take given that the others will shine in British styles.
Its bitterness is a bit coarser/rougher than some - half the world seems to like that style, the other half prefer a smoother bitterness, it's just personal preference. It kinda works as an aroma hop in the copper as long as you don't expect too much of it - it would be fine for a 3.8% ordinary bitter to swill at a party, but I'd use better hops for something I was trying to show off with. Sceptical of using it as a dry hop - it belongs in the boil.
Jester and Archer are both new ones from Farams - Jester seems to have taken off somewhat, and it's not unusual to see it in seasonal commercial beers, although I suspect supplies are not sufficient to allow it into permanent beers. Archer remains really rare, I'm struggling to think if I've ever seen it in a commercial beer so I can't say much about it other than treat it somewhat like Jester.
The big thing is - don't expect New World levels of intensity, Jester is not Citra or Galaxy. But the first time I ever drank it, which I think was possibly the first commercial brew, it was pure mango. Looking back I suspect that batch was made with cones that had been mollycoddled at Farams' trial site, I've never got that pure mango thing in the same way again. As bierhaus says, it does seem to vary quite a lot, I guess they're still figuring out how to harvest it consistently at the right time.
In general British brewers like to show it off in a fairly simple 4.2%-ish golden ale, UK pale or extra pale malt, maybe a bit of wheat. Maybe bitter with something else, but tends to be on its own otherwise. However, perhaps the best beer I've had with it since that first trial brew was a Romney Marsh one which blended it with Goldings, it's one of those blends that really works. I wouldn't argue too much with a blend with the less pungent New World hops like Cascade, but see how you go with it on its own or with Goldings as a first try.
I guess for getting to know them then I'd go for a fairly clean fermentation, you don't want too much yeast character getting in the way when you're learning about a hop - the stone fruit character of a Conan would get in the way of distinguishing similar flavours in Archer for instance, so I'd personally go with 009 of the ones you mention for that first brew with either Archer or Jester.
