How to utilise my hop haul...

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

DaleMC

Active Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2022
Messages
52
Reaction score
44
Location
London
Hello HBFers,

I've just receiver a haul from Homebrew Outlet (Brupaks) - lager malt sack (£32ish - looking around this is a great deal)... And also picked up a mystery hop box (£12) along with some caps getting me to free delivery. So hive mind afyer suggestions on what/when/why use these varieties that aren't my go to choices:

Endeavor (200g)
Waimea (100g) - seems perfect for an IPA/NEIPA
Brewers Gold (100g)
Comet US (100g)

All whole leaf should that inform any decisions

Any ideas gratefully received.
 
Endeavour has been on my radar for a while due to it having 'blackcurrant' in the description. I'd thought to make a pale ale or summer ale with it. Maybe a bitter...
Yep - I've done an IPA with a heavy dose of Bramling for this reason and it came out very well!
 
Brewer's Gold is a really important hop historically as she's at the root of the Wye family tree that led to most of the British hops like Target, Challenger etc and is in the pedigree of something like half of all hops worldwide. She was originally bred to be a higher-alpha, more disease resistant version of eg Goldings for use in British styles, and also got widely used in Belgian beers but has largely disappeared these days. She's clinging on in Germany as some German brewers value her soft bitterness for helles, which together with the pilsner points in an obvious direction. But just generally you can use her for almost any British or Belgian style - as a late hop she gives some citrus and sometimes quite a bit of blackcurrant depending on the vintage and how she's used. And as grandmother of Northern Brewer, you could justify her in a steam beer (California Common).

I've not tried it, but I think you might be disappointed in Waimea in a NEIPA, she's not as intense as some, I'd probably go more West Coast or APA direction. Or as a left field, a saison. Or a NZ Pilsner (obviously). Maybe eek her out with a bit of Comet, and bittering with something else like the Endeavour, to stretch the Waimea to two beers?

Endeavour is a a really underrated hop that suffered through coming out just as everyone was jumping on the Citra bandwagon. Think of her as a replacement for Challenger that goes more in a citrus/red berry direction, you can use her in just about any British or Belgian style but as a starter maybe go for a pale/golden ale, like a recipe for Coniston Bluebird and replace the Challenger with her and go a bit heavier on whirlpool/dryhop.

Comet is another fun one for hop geeks as she's about the only hop available that was bred for bittering that doesn't have pedigree in the main Wye family tree - her mother was Sunshine which as the name suggests was selected at Wye as an ornamental golden hop. This one's easy - bags of grapefruit, go directly to West Coast IPA, but any American Amber/Brown/Porter would also work. As a left-field suggestion, I've found that T-58 biotransforms the grapefruit of Chinook into a more complex, limey flavour so it might be worth just taking a gallon of wort and putting a bit of Comet at flameout/whirlpool and then fermenting with T-58 just to see if that's worth doing at larger scale.

I'd be really happy with all of those - and they're all 10% alpha or so apart from the Waimea which is nearly double that, so you've no shortage of bittering options either. I'd mostly use the Endeavour just because you have more of it in order to leave more of the rest for flavour contribution, but I'm also a big fan of using packs of hops "exactly"! Most of them would work quite well together so don't be afraid to play with blends.

Pilsner is the base malt not just for lager but for just about all beer on the Continent including most Belgian beers, and as their equivalent of extra pale it works in lots of US styles as well, although personally my taste prefers a bit more body so would blend in some regular pale. So it depends a bit on whether you're looking to use the pilsner up on just these hops - in general pilsner plus British-style hops points to Belgium. 25kg means 5-6 beers, I'd probably donate half the pale ale's allocation to the big beer, and replace it with Otter or Golden Promise, then it depends how much speciality malts you want to add in. It also depends how you're set for fermenters and temperature control, but in theory it would work - with one brewday per month you make lager in February and saison in June. But in the spirit of being a bit cheap and mostly trying to use what you've got, my thoughts would be along the lines of

Helles - Brewer's Gold, 34/70 or M54
West Coast IPA - Comet maybe a bit of Waimea - use a mug of the helles yeast
Belgian Strong Dark (or bock, Baltic porter) - Endeavour - either Rochefort dregs, BE-256, or use a mug of the WCIPA for bock/Baltic. Maybe partigyle some table beer off it
English pale - Endeavour - harvest yeast from a Coniston beer, or Fuller's 1856 or whatever
Saison or NZ Pilsner - Waimea, dregs of your favourite saison or reuse the helles yeast for the NZP

Brown best bitter - user-upper of a blend of whatever hops and malt are left, and the yeast from the pale.

Or you could replace one of them with a tripel with BG or Endeavour.
 
Hello HBFers,

I've just receiver a haul from Homebrew Outlet (Brupaks) - lager malt sack (£32ish - looking around this is a great deal)... And also picked up a mystery hop box (£12) along with some caps getting me to free delivery. So hive mind afyer suggestions on what/when/why use these varieties that aren't my go to choices:
So - what was the result?
 
So - what was the result?
Not everything has been used just yet, but I have made the following:

1. Best bitter with Endeavour which went down very nicely. Yeast built from Fullers.
2. Helles Bock - Brewers Gold. This is absolutely fanatstic, I used the Gregh Hughes Helles recipe for the malts and German Bock (WLP) , it's absolutely crystal clear and super proud of it!
3. The remaining brewers gold is currently fermenting in a Dunkel - really liked the profile given and decided to give it another ride!
4. Still need to use Waimea and Comet.

Not mentioned is the tragedy thay beset an IPA i used the other 100g of Endeavour in, the dreaded TCP taint!

Very grateful for the suggestions, they were very very useful!
 
Last edited:
For me, Comet worked well in a Black IPA. Although, it could possibly have been German Comet, as I was given it by simplyhops (Barth-Haas).
 
Has anyone ordered from The Home Brew Outlet recently?

Facebook hasn't been updated in a year, and website is a bit sparse.
Yeah, ordered couple of months back all working. Their core business is wholesale though (Brupaks), feels they're not putting much into direct to consumer stuff...
 

Latest posts

Back
Top