Our third bottled version of Hop Project should be out in stores in the next few weeks. You can identify this one as being bottled on the 4th week in June (it also has the date marked on the outside of the case boxes if you see a display).
You might think, man, it must be getting hard for the Yazoo brewers to come up with new recipes and hops to try, after 16 versions. Not so! There's always a new hop or a new way of using it that we have been wanting to try.
Hop Project #16 is hopped with Galena, Zeus, and Columbus at first wort, Goldings and Ahtanum at 30 minutes left for flavor, and with Perle and Ahtanum at 5 minutes left for aroma. We use Perle a good bit in our beers, but always as a bittering hop, never as an aroma or flavor hop. So for this one, we also dry-hopped it with a combination of Perle and Ahtanum. Finally, we wanted to experiment with the mineral profile of the beer, which changes how the bitterness is perceived on your tongue. We ususally use add gypsum to the water for hoppy beers, which tends to sharpen the hop bitterness. But this time we switched to calcium chloride, which rounds out the malt flavors a little more.
I like it. It has the juicy citrusy bitterness you would expect from Galena, Zeus, and Columbus, but the Perle on the finish seems to give it a little minty edge. The bitterness doesn't hit you over the head at first, but lingers like a good friend who doesn't want to go home yet.
Cheers,
Linus
1 comment:
Wow, I just tried the Hop Project 16 brew and it is just fantastic. I love a great Hoppy beer and this is one of the best I have ever tried. Salute!!!
J. Paul
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