Rocky Mountain 5
The wild west shaped America. In that same spirit, it conceived talented wild hops.
The Wye College introduced wild Norther American hops to their breeding program and got Brewer’s Gold, Bullion and Northern Brewer: the foundation of high alpha acids varieties. Almost high alpha acids varieties(＞10%AA) derived from the three, except Comet and Talisma.
Comet and Talisma are wild hop, their ancestors were born in Mongolia 6 million years ago. After a journey of 5 million yeas, they arrived in the Europe. In the latest 500 thousand years, they came to America.
In 2019, comet has showed beautiful grapefruit and resin flavors, low price and enough inventory, we』ll import more comet to replace the high price variety such as citra.
This it the power of wild hops.
Rocky Mountain 5, we call it A5 for short, is a wild variety with strong flavor also. Although it was released no more 2 years, it has burst many micro breweries’s saloons doors.
A5 has a low alpha content, but the aroma comes as a surprise: strong tobacco and piney, obvious spicy, a little citrus and mint. It has the best aroma persistence:hoppy aroma in your beer can last for several hours without attenuation in the air. As time goes by, piney will be a litter weaker while tobacco stronger.
Four micro breweries have list A5 as their conventional weapon since it arrived in China one month ago. It won’t be long before we can appreciate beers brewed with A5.
I gathered some comments from craft beer breweries and home brewers:
1、From Huainan: I dry hopped A5 in my lager, 3g/L, 5℃ for a week. I can smell strong tobacco and mint. I did the same to my wheat beer, it didn’t cover up ester aroma.
2、From Jinan：A5 has a strong piney flavor, it’s suitable for stout. The overall aroma is too strong for my nose, i did hop tea test to simulation late addition, cover with plastic wrap for one day, the flavor was still forceful. I dry hopped with Idhao 7 and El Dorado, and get some passion fruit.
3、From Jinan：very spicy, I plan to brew saison with it
4、From Xiamen: I brewed gose with that, it can bring flavors such as berries and black currant. Malic acid with lemon and slight piney from A5, taste good.
5、From Chengdu:yeah..its definitely interesting! I'm doing a purple beer with it, purple candy is definitely a good description
6、From Shenzhen: used Tsingtao beer as base wine, to test the suitable dry hopping amount, normal temperature for 2 days, 14-17℃ for 2 days, 4℃ for 2 days:
Group A: 1.2g/L，weak flavor was covered up by the beer flavor.
Group B: 3.0g/L, floral and herbal, the tail aroma is slight citrus, the mouthfeel is slight bitter orange peel(may be cozed by hop slag)
Group C:6.0g/L. Obvious piney and tobacco, the tail is tobacco and citrus. As temperature rise, tobacco is stronger and stronger.
Suggestion:Smoked porter and English style
7、From Kunming, so rare aroma!
8、Shantou: a litter citrus, the main flavor are piney and tobacco, i』ll use it to brew barley wine, 2gram/L.
9、From Weifang: now it’s the fourth day, the flavor is still strong.
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The other hops we introduced this year is Strisselspalt, Aramis, Barbe Rouge and Triskel, from Alsace, France. We』ll test them soon. Welcome to join us!
More information pls pay attention to WeChat official account:
酒州志，一個關於啤酒花的公眾號