# Millenium Hops



## dicko (3/5/09)

Hi Fellow Brewers,

I have done a search on this forum for some comments on these hops with not much success at all.

I decided to do a one malt, one hop, beer so that I could assess the flavour of this new variety.

I decided on what I call a Bland Lager and it consisted of Weyermann Pils to an OG of 1044, a mash temp of 65degc, IBU's of 20.3 with a single 45 min addition.
The yeast was a dry S189 at 12 degc for 21 days and i achieved an FG of 1007.
Now upon the first tasting from the fermenter it has an uncanny resemblance to Carlton Natural Blonde in as much that the hop flavour has that real earthy after taste that I have noticed in the bottled megadrink. My beer is very dry so that there is not much malt influence in the taste.
Has anyone else used this hop and if so, what are your thoughts?
Has anyone tried the Carlton Natural Blonde in the bottle?
I wonder if this is the hop that CUB are using in this beer?
I actually dont mind the flavour that this hop imparts but i do think that it takes a bit of time to get to accept it.
I will say that the additon at 45 mins has also let a small hint of aroma to come through as well, which I dont believe exists in the CUB megadrink.
I am going to post this on the AMB as well so as to hopefully get feedback from any that have used Millenium.

BTW I was not trying to clone this beer.

Cheers


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## samhighley (3/5/09)

Those in the US would call this a SMASH beer.

Single Malt And Single Hop

Took me a while to workout this acronym while browsing HomeBrewTalk.com


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## Muggus (3/5/09)

A bit OT, but Mikkeller brew quite a few single hop pale ales/IPA. Their Simcoe Single Hop IPA is to die for! :icon_drool2: 

Anyway, I've used Millenium hops before in an American style Barley wine, combined with Centennial. 
Seemed quite similiar to Centennial, and other American "C" hops. Quite fragrant, particularly grapefruit citrus and pine-like woodiness.

I'd say if you are doing these single hop sort of beers, you should focus more hops towards late in the boil to get the best potential aroma and flavour of the hop. Millenium seems particularly good late in the boil...plenty of aroma and flavour.


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## flattop (3/5/09)

Smash beers are not so uncommon, i was considering brewing one not long ago but never got around to it, there are a few recipe's around if you dig deep.


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## Bribie G (3/5/09)

Haven't used Millenium but I did a smash Cerveza with Galaxy and rice (well that's still single malt :lol: ) and a 90 yep 90 minute addition of 20g Chinook and the hops are great, there's a surprising amount of flavour and nice long bitter finish. I've decided it's no way a Cerveza, more like a Classic American Pilsener.

Many Australian beers are made this way, I note the good Coopers Sparkling recipes just do a single POR addition at 90 mins. I did an old with POR 60 minutes that is very smooth and would not benefit from more hops, and I have just done a Classic Bulimba (Carlton) smash with BB Pale Pilsener and Superpride 90 mins. I haven't tasted it yet, bottling next week, but I bet it will turn out along the same lines as the above and would bet money that's why your experiment turned out very Aussi-fied following the traditional Aussie one addition.


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## dicko (4/5/09)

Hi Guys,

I am after more of an assessment on Millenium hops.

The method of the one malt one hop was intended only to be the medium with which I could evaluate any single hop. 
I dont think I would get a true evaluation if I combined two hops, regardless of when they are added to the boil.

I intend to use this method to evaluate some of the newer varieties of hop in the future.
My reason for this experiment apart from being for my own info is maybe to provide brewers with a basic idea of what to expect when using a new hop, and to provide information that is from more than one brewer
I was totally surprised when IMO it left a taste not dissimilar to Carlton Natural Blonde, hence my question.

When I did a search I found that the topic that was on Millenium and Galaxy, mentioned very little about Millenium and many posts had gone off on a tangent from actually evaluating the hop.

Cheers


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## christmasbender (4/5/09)

hey dicko

what size was your smash batch? and how much hops did you add at 45 min?

i have been given some millennium hops (2007 crop - 14.4aa) and am planning a smash brew myself. 

i just used them as a bittering hop for an oatmeal stout yesterday. 

if you say it comes out like an aussie drop i might go all out aussie and use 100% aussie ale malt like powells? although i think i've heard some folk on here say it's not the best malt (but they are probably imported malt snobs!)

let me know the above info and i'll keep you posted on how i go.

cheers,

christmasbender


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## BoilerBoy (4/5/09)

dicko said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> I am after more of an assessment on Millenium hops.
> 
> ...



G'day Dicko,

Like you I have also done a search on Millenium here, but to no avail.

I have got some Millenium that I haven't used yet and have intended to do a single hop batch to asses it, but have also been waiting to hear from other brewers about their experiences with not much further info so far.

I noticed CraftBrewer's description still remains fairly vague only liking it to its mother "Nugget" if your familiar with it?

I tried the new hop Aussie hop "Summer Saaz" in a lager with Super Alpha for bittering because of the low AA% of Summer Saaz I only used it late in the boil (additions after 20min) and it also to me tasted like a smoother form of Nugget, which is ok, quite enjoyable, but I probably wouldn't use it again....and not much like Saaz at all IMHO.

More feedback on Millenium would be good though.

Cheers,
BB


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## browndog (4/5/09)

When Craftbrewer started selling Millenium I bought a 90g bag to try it out. I made a typical lawnmower beer with it so I could get a good handle on the flavour without it having to compete with too much malt. I used about 20 g for bittering and added 20g @ 5min and 20g @ 0 min to get some flavour. I used US-05 to keep it clean. Well when I tried this beer for the first time I could not believe it. There was absolutely no hop taste at all!! The bittering was fine, but there was just no hop flavour at all, I could not believe it. I gave Ross a try of this beer and his comment was "it would make a great bittering hop Tony" So there you have it, I hope you have better results than I did Dicko, let us know how you get on.

cheers

Browndog


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## Quintrex (4/5/09)

browndog said:


> When Craftbrewer started selling Millenium I bought a 90g bag to try it out. I made a typical lawnmower beer with it so I could get a good handle on the flavour without it having to compete with too much malt. I used about 20 g for bittering and added 20g @ 5min and 20g @ 0 min to get some flavour. I used US-05 to keep it clean. Well when I tried this beer for the first time I could not believe it. There was absolutely no hop taste at all!! The bittering was fine, but there was just no hop flavour at all, I could not believe it. I gave Ross a try of this beer and his comment was "it would make a great bittering hop Tony" So there you have it, I hope you have better results than I did Dicko, let us know how you get on.
> 
> cheers
> 
> Browndog



I agree, I think it's an awesome clean bittering hop from the brews I've done with it. I'd happily recommend it for any application where a clean neutral bittering hop is required. I'd say it could easily sub for nugget, horizon, or magnum.
Plus cheaper and Australian made/grown.
Q


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## T.D. (4/5/09)

BoilerBoy said:


> I tried the new hop Aussie hop "Summer Saaz" in a lager with Super Alpha for bittering because of the low AA% of Summer Saaz I only used it late in the boil (additions after 20min) and it also to me tasted like a smoother form of Nugget, which is ok, quite enjoyable, but I probably wouldn't use it again....and not much like Saaz at all IMHO.



I may be wrong but I think this 'saaz' hop has been around for quite some time. I bought some from ND Brewing several years ago. It was pretty good, but I agree not really a substitute for the Czech stuff.

Like all aussie hops (perhaps with the exception of Galaxy!) they aren't really that potent. You need to jam a heap in to get an effect. But they are nice all the same. The great thing is its very hard to overdo a beer hopped with Aussie finishing hops. I used 100g of Tassie Hallertau late in a brew once and hardly got any hop flavour. Do that with something like Chinook and you'll regret it!


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## dicko (4/5/09)

christmasbender said:


> hey dicko
> 
> what size was your smash batch? and how much hops did you add at 45 min?
> 
> ...



Howdy Xbender

Batch size 46 litres
AA 14.4
Hop addition 22gr.

It has a slight aroma at the moment and to me if I didn't know I would say it is a hint of european Saaz.but as I said the flavour has an earthy tone to it.

I am interested to try it once kegged and carbonated.

Cheers


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## Kai (4/5/09)

Dicko, I've tried some Millennium on a larger scale and found it to be a little harsh on bittering. Any flavour was drowned out by the rest of the beer, but the beer itself was quite mildly hopped. I have a small pack in my freezer and expect I will use it for an aussie ale at some point.


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## Jerry (6/5/09)

Hi Dicko.

I'm currently drinking a Millenium Ale at the moment. I have a love / hate relationship with it.

At times I quite enjoy it and at other times I wonder why I'm bothering.

The recipe was -

JW Ale - 67%
JW Pilsner - 22%
JW Wheat - 11%

12g Millenium 14.4% - 60 mins
20g Millenium 14.4% - 10 mins
25g Millenium 14.4% - 0 mins

US-05

At times I find it really bland; easy drinking lawn mower beer but just not much going on.

Other times I get a bit of hop flavour. I described it in my notes as being slightly 'stone fruity' but I'm not totally convinced of this.

Not sure I'd use it again for anything other than bittering.

Galaxy on the other hand. :icon_drool2: 

Scott


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## browndog (6/5/09)

Jerry said:


> Hi Dicko.
> 
> I'm currently drinking a Millenium Ale at the moment. I have a love / hate relationship with it.
> 
> ...



It is the most boring hop I've come across. As I said earlier, two 20g additions at the end of the boil and there was no hop flavour.

cheers

Browndog


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## Tony (6/5/09)

Glad i read this. i was going to do an all milenium ale to see what it was like

will save it for bittering

cheers


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## christmasbender (6/5/09)

Tony said:


> Glad i read this. i was going to do an all milenium ale to see what it was like
> 
> will save it for bittering
> 
> cheers



me too


cheers

christmasbender


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## BoilerBoy (7/5/09)

Tony said:


> Glad i read this. i was going to do an all milenium ale to see what it was like
> 
> will save it for bittering
> 
> cheers



and me :unsure: 

BB


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## mje1980 (7/5/09)

I heard it takes ages and ages to grow :lol:


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## Thirsty Boy (7/5/09)

I use Millenium as a clean bittering hop. As Quintrex said, any application where the recipe says - Horizon, Magnum, Nugget .... I sub Millenium because I have craploads of it.

I hadn't noticed it being particularly harsh... But in beers where this would stick out badly, I am really only using it to boost the IBUs of Noble hop additions anyway, so maybe thats just because of the applications I have put it to. It supplied 20 of the IBUs for my vienna lager that did well at Vicbrew and nationals last year, so its not too bad.

I have a pale Aussie lager in my to be brewed line-up, I shall almost certainly be using Millenium as teh bittering hop, and thats all there will be, so It will be a SMASH pale lager with about 18-20IBU from Millenium. I will report back.


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