Mt hood or Cascade in an amber ale?

[pfooti]

I'm going to brew up an american amber this afternoon. The plan looks more-or-less straightforward: 2-row, munich, biscuit, c40, and a hint of special B. I was planning originally on doing a willamette / cascade hop schedule, but then I remembered I had all this mt. hood in my freezer too. So: assuming I use willamette as a flavor/aroma hop, should I do a bitter/flavor addition with mt hood or cascade? Any ideas?

oh, the general plan is shooting for a 1.055 OG and about 35 IBUs of bittering. I have a handle on the overall recipe, I'm just sort of torn between cascade and mt. hood. Leaning cascade at this moment.

[passlaku]

If you're gong for an American Amber your best bet is Cascade, it is classically 'Merican.

[pfooti]

Word, thanks. Oddly, I've never brewed with cascade, and I've been brewing for three years now. Of course, the first two were kit/extract beers, so I never really made any recipe decisions. I'll save the mt. hood for my cream ale (and denny's rye PA).

[hopshead]

You will make a fine beer with either. If it were me, I would use both and hop the shit out of it, lol .

(I rarely brew beers where the bitterness to gravity point ratio is less than 1.0)

[pfooti]

Heh, yeah. This is supposed to be my exercise in restraint beer. I've got a lot of uber-hoppy beers, but I've yet to brew something I consider sessionable, where you can just keep on quaffing it. The pale ale is close, but a bit too hoppy, and my cream ale is close but a tiny bit too boring. I want something that's intriguing enough that you keep coming back, but easy enough that you can just keep on truckin'

[Grizz]

I would use both to round out the hop flavor. I say this because I have made several all Mt.Hood hopped beers. Mt.Hood seems to give the beers a catty almost veggital harshness. That was the feed back for my last one. This was from several friends that are BJCP Judges.

[Cliff]

Heh, yeah. This is supposed to be my exercise in restraint beer.

I just did one of those.
I tend to hop rather strongly too.

My father in law found one of my recent highly hopped beers too sharp so I made a beer just for him for when he visits. I'll like it too I am most certain. Never brewed a beer I wasn't crazy about.