Revisiting Amarillo Hops - Seeking Quality Hops For Homebrew 

I think that storage matters, but lot selection is key. I’m not sure what control we have over that, as homebrewers. I think that no matter what there’s a lot of luck involved, but hopefully it helps to order directly from suppliers right after the harvest. I’m planning to buy my favorite varieties in bulk from YVH when 2023 pellets become available. And to mix in Cryo hops when I really want a punchy dry hop, since their quality seems higher on average. I think that oversupply - either from good hop years, or from high acreage - definitely helps. Funny that you mention Centennial because I’ve found it to be very consistent and use it in practically all my hoppy beers now. Especially when I need a filler hop in the boil.

I have the same line of thinking about the hop lots. My purchases of Amarillo lately have been very floral. Not bad, but nothing like the orange description and some good commercial examples I've had. From my own experience and what others say some hops seem to be more uniform say Cascade for exampal. On the other hand Centenial has changed a lot to more garlic unless you find a good lot. A while back I bought some equiempent second hand from someone who was moving. I got some unoponed pounds of hops from the seller with the equipment who got them from his good friend that is a commercial brewer. The citra I used was something else. My good buddy who gives very blunt feedback to me thought my IPA was the best I ever brewed and so did his girlfriend. I didn't mention a thing about the hops or say anthing was different. The difference was very noticable to me. It would be really interesting if you could find a commercial brewery willing to part with little of there hops to do a splitch batch with the homebrew hops and do a blind triangle test. Best of wishes to all finding the good lot of hops. Thanks for posting!

Thanks for the great video guys. I really appreciate the common sense info on the hop acquisition. I normally buy my hops from Northern Brewer's or other company as we don't have a local brewer supply store but getting it from a producer is something that hadn't occurred to me (duh!). The brew looks great! Thanks again and keep up the good work!

I have 2 homebrew shops by me. Shop #1 buys some hops by the pound then separates that out into small 1oz baggies with no care taken towards preserving the hops. Shop #2 buys a bulk amount of nitrogen purged 2oz bags of hops and 8-16oz bags of popular hops that are vacuum seals (cascade, centennial, etc.). It's fairly well-known in the homebrew club to avoid shop #1 because the quality is very noticeably worse, like you mentioned in the video. We're also lucky enough to be right by a few hop growing farms as well as a hop pelletizing company, Mill 95, so it's fairly easy for us to get hop pellets as fresh as they get. Comparing those super fresh pellets to what you get from yakima valley online, hard to tell a difference. But I'll go out of my way to go to shop #2 to get whatever hops I need or else I'll buy online and always avoid shop #1.

Love Amarillo! Cheers 🍻

Thanks for the great video knowing new thinks about yeast and hops. the translation option not working in this video I wish if you can fix it in future.

Also just brewed an amarillo ale, mine came out quite juicy with orange/tangerine flavours and peachy/vanilla (maybe thats the creamsicle flavour you get John). Still good but hasnt got the floral and spice notes ive gotten in the past. Cheers. Btw from Syd Aus if that makes a difference.

A hack I found is you can vacuum seal the bags they come in. I think you guys should try and hunt down some bergamot hops, they’re supposed to be really orange.

Same down here in Australia, wonder about freshness

Great topic! You have to wonder if the LHBS really go the extra step (flushing oxygen and vacupacking) when they repack their hops from larger bags. Perhaps they do, but I might go through my beer calendar and see if I have any common hops over the next few batches and give Yakima a try. Thanks and Cheers!

I agree that Amarillo and Galaxy have fallen off the last few years. From listening to a lot of podcasts and talking to local brewers pros who aren't Tree house are seeing the same thing. You might to try a concentrated product like cryo or flowable extract. I believe they are standardised to a more consistent profile. On the upside Cascade has gotten way better.

What are your thoughts on aging pellet hops? Like aging a cigar? Any way to measure how much the IBU's degrade over time? I've got a few pounds and it will be some time before I use them all up...

I've used Amarillo a couple of times and I've never got any significant flavor contribution from it so I don't use it anymore.