My take in general from the beers I have made, and all the feedback is generally
1. hops are more powdery than what you normally expect. They crush them finner (their aim is to release the flavours and aroma quicker)
2. Flavours and aroma are definitely there, BUT more subdued. This may be due to the finner crush allowing these to be blown away quicker in the boil, may be due to the processing.
3. Bitterness seems clean and ok. No general complaints.
4. Hops have the characteristsic of their namesakes, ie Chinese Cascade is Cascade, BUT they have their own local variant on the flavours.
To me as a brewer, they do require twigging in the receipe. Generally upping the flavour and aroma amounts by 1/2 seems to compensate well, and adding later in the process to get flavours and aroma is the go, as they release these on contact with the boil.
To go out on a limb, I recon some-one else summed it nicely - Its will be testiment to the brewers skill to get the best out of these hops. in the formulation of receipe, how and the amount the hops are added. There is nothing wrong with them, BUT if the brewer doesn't have the skills to exploit them, then they need to re-learn their hopping skills.
Neverthe less, The Chinese are very good. I have passed on ALL feedback, good and bad to the Producer. They have in turn passed it to their technical people to improve next years crop.
Plus they have sent me hop samples from the other farms to see if this is a local problem or a General problem.
This order bears no resembance in a lot of ways to the previous order. Its totally a different region and farming, drying and processing practice.
So I look forward to the sample and the second round of feedback
Craftbrewer
Graham L Sanders
Skype "Craftbrewer"
http://radio.craftbrewer.org
