Hops Less Travelled - what are we trying?

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Reading this post got me inspired to try out some of the new Australian hops I've been reading about, so I got 90g packets of Sylva, Ella, and Victoria's Secret from Craftbrewer.

I'm planning to brew all of these with a Coopers Real Ale kits and LDME to ~1.050 and ferment with a lager yeast to test them out.

I put the first one down on Tuesday ~1.048 with a 5 minute boil of 45g of Sylva, then dropped in a frementor over night since my chiller won't do that small a volume.

The smell coming out of the newly opened packet was promising. The sticky, green smell of fresh hops (myrcene?) lasted less then a minute before it died out, but it was replaced by some lovely melon and spice aromas (soft spices like cinnamon, rather than sharp spices like pepper or nutmeg).
The "fresh sawn timber" that is talked about was there, but in the background. I probably wouldn't have picked it except I was looking for it.

Smelling and tasting the wort I could barely detect the hops. This could mean it is a very subtle hop after brewing, or it could be that the slow cooling blew out all the aromas but I always have difficulty tasting hops through unfermented wort so it's probably a combination.

I'll be fermenting it with Craftbrewer's Swiss Lager yeast at 11C.

Watch this space for more.
 
I've ordered some Sylva to try in a basic blonde. I get hints from some searches that it's a rename of Summer Saaz? Can anyone confirm that?

Also trying Mosaic in my own brew for the first time. A little worried it's going to end up like galaxy (which I have learned to loathe.. so over that pasito flavour).

Still haven't gotten some Orbit!
 
I'm loving Apollo.
Pairs well with cascade/centennial or simcoe. Good clean and efficient bittering (17%AA!). Like marijuana and citrus (orange / grapefruit) when used late.
 
So many hops, so little time. I just cleared out my hops collection and catalogued them to store them in my new freezer. I've been in bulk buys, buys from Hops Direct, Ellerslie, Yakima you name it.
Today I found a pound of German Saphir that had turned out almost as good as the Chinese Hops and a pound of UK EKG that were a tad worse (from Ellerslie).

Nearly $40 down. That's why nowadays If I have a brilliant idea for a hop I'll just get 90 or 100g from an Aussie supplier and if it's a ripper (like the current Challenger from Ross or the EKG from Marks Home Brew) I'll get the pound deal from them. I honestly and sincerely believe I've not broken anywhere near even in my hop career by getting from overseas. Don't use much Cascadia hops nowadays and if I do up a keg or three of Yak for the rellies and visitors I've got POR, NZ Cascade and NS and can do the thing on all flowers. :beerbang:

The kilo of stale hops went to my mate round the corner. He sweats the resins out of them and smokes it - he reckons they are the best sedative and has given up at least two prescriptions from the doc :ph34r:
 
Hopping the hell out of a homebrew lager kit tommorow with Glacier. It's an experiment two-fold.

a) Is it possible to make this B-grade malt palatable
b ) what does glacier taste like on its own
 
Nick R said:
Also trying Mosaic in my own brew for the first time. A little worried it's going to end up like galaxy (which I have learned to loathe.. so over that pasito flavour).
It's nothing like Galaxy, imo.
 

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