Beechworth brewing company in Victoria Australia released a triple chocolate ale for Easter called the eggster. Most chocolate beer I've tasted by far, bloody nice!
There's another course/route to add orange flavour to your brew, it's your yeast; Voss Kveik produces a wonderful orange flavour that's not pithy nor sweet nor bitter. Match it to your hops and malt, and you've got a winner that does not need a thermally controlled fermenter to work (due to Kveik working from ~18-50C during fermentation).
Amarillo was the hop for my first single hop American IPA. Since that day it has always been my favorite and Citra in second place. You confirm what I felt at that time. Nice
I brewed a 5 gallon batch of all Idaho-7 American Pale Ale, with a variety of malts. Idaho-7 was used for first-wort hopping, then later as a 15 minute late boil addition. Wort was chilled For dry hopping, I used Idaho-7, with 3 oz Idaho-7 hops going in to the beer following cold-crashing, for 4 days. Then, the beer was transferred to a keg and carbonated. I got a moderately-strong pineapple aroma and flavor, along with orange (medium level flavor). Several folks that tried it said although it was really good, it would be good to try the same recipe, but adding other hops to use along with Idaho-7, for more complexity. So next time, I think I will use Amarillo in addition to the Idaho-7, for all the hop additions.
Tried doing an orange chocolate stout with a small addition of citra, but after watching this I think I'll try it again with idaho 7 and a lot more hops to bring out that orange flavor. Thanks for the video.
The best beer I ever had was Deuchars IPA from the Caledonian Brewery (now shuttered) in Edinburgh. Had it by chance when I popped into the Caledonian Ale House. very pleasant earthy and mild orange aroma, the taste was a stronger orange. Not a punch, but not subtle either. A guy from HBT got the recipe from the brewery at the time and the hops were fuggle, styrian goldings and willamette. I have tried many times to recreate it with no luck. Yes, they had their own yeast strain for it, but with these hops I never got close to an orange flavor. Haven't tried in a long time, I think I will Frankenstein it with one of these hops. Thank you, cheers!
Adding to the comments below- Simcoe is 100% another very orange forward hop in some batches, and I've also had batches of Motueka that throw big sweet orange along with their characteristic lime. But totally agree with the overall conclusion here; Amarillo is 100% where I reach if I want to throw some marmalade-y orange into the mix on a new-world hopped beer. Not quite in the same ball park as others mentioned here, but my go-to hop for British style beers is First Gold which is another very marmalade forward cultivar.
Citra I would never associate that with Orange, and frankly i wouldn't even give it grapefruit flavor anymore. When it was first release, it had a huge grapefruit flavor but now no so much. I think the mass production of it, maybe different soil and sun caused the flavors to change over time.
a unique twist i was working on i used savinjski golding hops with lemondrop. it comes out really nice on the aroma and has a lemon iced tea thing going on as well. idaho 7 ive been so curious to try
For hop forward beers, feels like they are all winners. What would your recommendation be for a "Orange porter or Stout"? Trying to get something like a Terry's chocolate, so if it's too tropical, it doesn't really fit. Cheers!
It's interesting how we all perceive flavors, or perhaps how hops can vary according to the year and the weather, or growing location. I put a bunch of Mandarina Bavaria into an attempt at a Cold IPA, and I got major green melon and strawberry flavors, no citrus at all.
I mainly do ipas and i use most of these hops. Except mandarina. Idaho 7 is my new favourite hop. Another hop you could add to the list might be strata.
I was at a local brewery, talking to the bar tender who happened to also be one of the brewers... I was talking to him as I also home brewed and I told him I was going to make an Orange IPA. I made it, it came out ok but I used Pacifica hops. It wasn't 6 months later I'm at a pizza joint and the same brewery has a new beer out and its an Orange IPA... And of course it was way better than mine...
A while back when everybody was losing their minds over how great Citra is, I thought I’ve gotta try this, so brewed a single hop IPA. All Citra. Sad to say it was straight up cat pee, like sticking my face right in puss’s scratch tray. I’m definitely onboard with the Amarillo thing though.
Anyone here understand the information he provided on citra hops? Am i right in saying that to get the most out of citra hops we should use them as an early dry hop around high Kräusen with the yeast still active?
Mandarina Bavaria is really iffy for me. I used it 5 or 6 years ago and the beer was great for about a month, then it turned to cat piss. It really put me off it. I've had a couple beers from other folks that didn't have as much of that character but it's almost always there to me.
Why use actual oranges when you can just hop your way to that citrusy goodness? Who knew hops could be so versatile - they're not just for bittering anymore!