Yeast and Amarillo Complement

[explosivebeer]

I was listening to one of the Sessions recently and I think Doc was talking about using Amarillo as a nice, subtle complement to the yeast he was using to create a great stone fruit synergy between the two.

Unfortunately I can't remember what yeast he was using and have no idea which show it was. Does anyone else remember that? It sounded like a great idea and I'd like to explore it but haven't been able to find it again.

[explosivebeer]

Just to follow up, I did end up finding the segment I was looking (listening?) for on the 9/20/09 Session with Nathan Smith around the 159-minute mark. Nathan was talking about using the seasonal White Labs Bastogne strain combined with some light late Amarillo to meld the two fruit characters. I also found several people who said that US-05 can produce some of those same peachy stone fruit characters when fermented in the low- to mid-60's.

[nahthan]

Yes, that's been my experience with it. Give it a try! While I'm not a huge fan of aggressive Amarillo character in Cal Ale yeast beers, it can lend an interesting complexity to beers with a significant amount of esters like Belgian strains. See the "Verhelst Tripel" recipe on this page for an example:

http://destroy.net/brewing/461/

Think of using the Amarillo in that type of recipe more like how one would use a coriander and orange peel spice addition for a wit. Just enough to get a hint of it, but not enough so that the beer screams citrus & Amarillo. for a I get a white wine like aroma with a touch of citrus and woodiness with that combination of hops & WLP510 yeast. That strain is really nice for interesting moderate intensity belgian ale esters and low intensity phenols that compliment hops quite nicely.

I haven't had good luck in using hops with piney and or dank aromas & flavors like Chinook, Columbus and Simcoe with these type of yeast strains, however. It has a way of over accentuating the phenols and clashing with the esters.

[brewinhard]

Cool site Nathan with some great recipes. Great tip on the amarillo for a tripel. I could see how that hop would blend nicely with the yeast profile. Have you ever attempted to brew a belgian IPA with american hops? I have been thinking about making one for a while now. Thanks for sharing....

[Bugeater]

Have you ever attempted to brew a belgian IPA with american hops?

That is exactly what my next planned brew is going to be. A simple belgian tripple with a combination of sorachi ace and amarillo hops.

Wayne

[nahthan]

Cool site Nathan with some great recipes. Great tip on the amarillo for a tripel. I could see how that hop would blend nicely with the yeast profile. Have you ever attempted to brew a belgian IPA with american hops? I have been thinking about making one for a while now. Thanks for sharing....

Any time man, try it out and let us know how it turns out. Since WLP510 is not available at the moment, you could experiment with WLP500 or 530 fermented cool (63-66F) or probably even better yet, WLP570. One word of warning about 570, it's a very low flocculating yeast, you have to cold crash it for quite a while & be patient..

I've brewed Belgian IPA with American hops a number of times, and sort of abandoned the idea in favor of this more light handed approach as described in the Tripel. However, this rendition of the Belgian IPA idea was one of the more successful attempts (from that same webpage mentioned above) "Speciale Bier Het Noord Van Oakland":
http://destroy.net/brewing/461/Speciale ... kland.html

Looking at the hop bill again, I'd probably remove Summit and Simcoe if I were to do this again, sticking to mainly spicy nobles and fruity/citrusy american hops, avoiding dank and pine.

I think Bugeater's on to something with using Amarillo & Sorachi Ace in a Tripel. That distinct lemony character that often times comes from Soarchi should blend nicely with Belgian ale yeast esters.

[brewinhard]

Got to sample a strong saison brewed and dry-hopped with Sorachi Ace from Brooklyn Brewery this summer at the Vermont Brewers fest in Burlington. Delicious beer and lip smackin hop! That was the first time I have ever tried the Sorachi ace and it blended well with the saison citrus/earth/spice profile in the beer. It was actually my very first sample of the day at the fest, and was one of my favorite beers of the day! Funny, that was the last time I saw and spoke with Greg Noonan....