Beer rescue - advice needed

[matt76]

I took a gravity sample of my Styrian Wolf Session IPA last night... (recipe details here in my brewday thread)

It's at, or nearly-at, FG so I'll take another reading tomorrow and all being well cold crash and dry hop with a further 60g Styrian Wolf (N.B. it's a 10L batch).

The issue is when I tasted the sample I wasn't bowled over - not bad but not as intense as I'd have hoped for at this stage. Maybe that's just the character of these hops, more floral than fruity, kinda old world/noble in character compared to new world/American hops.

(I've had a similar thing before with a Chinook hopped beer though, using the same grist - not bad, just a bit dull, boring, insipid...)

Surprisingly for the gravity (1.006-1.007) it's not particularly dry, maybe even a little sweet. It's also not got enough of a bitter bite for me - in hindsight for sure I'd have added another 10 IBUs worth of bittering hops in the boil.

(Mind you, judging by how the CML "Pia" yeast has behaved for me in the past I wouldn't be too surprised if it dropped another point or two and dried out a little!)

These are the options I'm considering at the moment:

1. Proceed as planned and dry hop with 60g Styrian Wolf? Hard to say one way or the other what the outcome will be, not to mention the effect of carbonation.
2. Add more/different hops (i) - I have 140g SW in total so could add more, or some Simcoe (which I used as a bittering hop) for a bit more complexity.
3. Add more/different hops (ii) - My aim was really to understand what SW tastes like so ideally I don't want to start using other hops, but I do have others in the freezer (Amarillo, Chinook, Mosaic, Galaxy, Simcoe)
4. When I come to bottle I'm toying with the idea of adding, say, 5g, Simcoe and boiling it for 5mins with my priming sugar - rather than steeping as you would a hop tea the idea is to try to top up the IBU's

My current feeling is to suck it and see with option 1 or 2 - if nothing else it helps cement what I need to do different in future. But I would be interested if anyone has any other suggestions.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[An Ankoù]

I took a gravity sample of my Styrian Wolf Session IPA last night... (recipe details here in my brewday thread)

It's at, or nearly-at, FG so I'll take another reading tomorrow and all being well cold crash and dry hop with a further 60g Styrian Wolf (N.B. it's a 10L batch).

The issue is when I tasted the sample I wasn't bowled over - not bad but not as intense as I'd have hoped for at this stage. Maybe that's just the character of these hops, more floral than fruity, kinda old world/noble in character compared to new world/American hops.

(I've had a similar thing before with a Chinook hopped beer though, using the same grist - not bad, just a bit dull, boring, insipid...)

Surprisingly for the gravity (1.006-1.007) it's not particularly dry, maybe even a little sweet. It's also not got enough of a bitter bite for me - in hindsight for sure I'd have added another 10 IBUs worth of bittering hops in the boil.

(Mind you, judging by how the CML "Pia" yeast has behaved for me in the past I wouldn't be too surprised if it dropped another point or two and dried out a little!)

These are the options I'm considering at the moment:

1. Proceed as planned and dry hop with 60g Styrian Wolf? Hard to say one way or the other what the outcome will be, not to mention the effect of carbonation.
2. Add more/different hops (i) - I have 140g SW in total so could add more, or some Simcoe (which I used as a bittering hop) for a bit more complexity.
3. Add more/different hops (ii) - My aim was really to understand what SW tastes like so ideally I don't want to start using other hops, but I do have others in the freezer (Amarillo, Chinook, Mosaic, Galaxy, Simcoe)
4. When I come to bottle I'm toying with the idea of adding, say, 5g, Simcoe and boiling it for 5mins with my priming sugar - rather than steeping as you would a hop tea the idea is to try to top up the IBU's

My current feeling is to suck it and see with option 1 or 2 - if nothing else it helps cement what I need to do different in future. But I would be interested if anyone has any other suggestions.

Cheers,

Matt

I made a single hop Styrian Wolf some time ago and the flavours you describe are the same I experienced. If it were me, I wouldn't add more as you'll just get more of the same and even start getting grassy notes.
If you're looking for AIPA flavours then you'll need to use something like Citra, Amarillo, Mosaic or Galaxy.
Not sure how they'd go with the European hop, though.
Edit:
Just looked up my notes. It was a couple of years ago. I found the beer almost astringently bitter and quite grassy. It wasn't a single hop beer after all as I'd bittered with Magnum. My "note to self" was "don't use again". Looked up the hop in Hopslist:
"Developed by the Slovenian Institute for Hop Research and Brewing, Styrian Wolf is one of the latest Styrian hops on the market. When brewed, expect intense fruity and floral notes. These include flavors of sweet tropical fruits and complex aromas of mango, elderflower and even a hint of violet."
Not my experience, I'm afraid. Maybe I got something else that was mis-labelled.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

I'm with @An Ankoù , adding more styrian wolf will just be more of the same. Out of the hops you mentioned, maybe dry hop mosaic or galaxy? I think the other two would be a bit odd. Have you got anything else in the freezer?

 

[samale]

If it was me I will bottle a few of the original beer. Then dry hop the rest with mosiac. It would be nice then to compare the two together. Mosaic is probably my favourite hop.

 

[matt76]

I made a single hop Styrian Wolf some time ago and the flavours you describe are the same I experienced. If it were me, I wouldn't add more as you'll just get more of the same and even start getting grassy notes.

Not what I wanted to hear but thanks bit frustrating as others on the forum have said they've got good results from it, but I guess it depends a lot what you're after. In this case I was searching for something a bit different, more leftfield, to the usual suspects you mentioned.

I'm with @An Ankoù , adding more styrian wolf will just be more of the same. Out of the hops you mentioned, maybe dry hop mosaic or galaxy? I think the other two would be a bit odd. Have you got anything else in the freezer?

Plenty more hops but they're all old world/noble types.

The Mosaic and Citra I've got earmarked for something else - but I suppose more can be ordered if need be. Chinook probably won't fit the bill here; maybe Simcoe maybe not; Amarillo for sure; Not used Galaxy before but from what I understand it could work.