Anyone here getting grassy notes from their 2013 Amarillo?

[Loetz]

I've been reading some murmuring about this for the past couple of months. Have any of you had bad batches?

I have a bunch of it in the freezer right now, and I was planning to do an all-amarillo American wheat, but now I'm not sure. I'll open it up on brew day and see what I think of the smell. I'll just have to have a plan-b for the hops.

 

[Slid]

I've been reading some murmuring about this for the past couple of months. Have any of you had bad batches?

I have a bunch of it in the freezer right now, and I was planning to do an all-amarillo American wheat, but now I'm not sure. I'll open it up on brew day and see what I think of the smell. I'll just have to have a plan-b for the hops.

Is this the way to Amorillo
Every night I've been mowing my pillow
Dreaming dreams of Amorillo
And the beer she makes for me

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-LAAA!!

 

[kev]

How many reports of this have you read?

K

 

[Loetz]

How many reports of this have you read?

K

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/grassy- ... ps-446744/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/com ... tes_a_bit/

 

[Slid]

A search for the "chemical that smells of grass" returns Phosgene, which isn't really very nice at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene

Enough to put anyone off.

 

[Hoppy]

The biggest problem with Hop Baby plants (up to 3 years old, I didn't name them that) they can be quite unstable in their aroma
until the root stock is well established. There have been considerable new plantings of Amarillo on Gamache farms (the owner of the root stock).

Certainly not heard any rumblings with commercial brewers.
Crop 13 I have rubbed is fine.

Regards

Hoppy

 

[Loetz]

I just sniffed my 2012 and 2013 Amarillo side-by-side and I got a bit of garlic in the 2013. I'm not sure about grass.

I used the 2013 for kettle hops and the 2012 for dry hopping. We will see how this turns out.

 

[B-Hoppy]

At an event last December, I tasted a beer which was pushed through a randall that contained Amarillo. The beer was VERY grassy so I decided to check my stock. I purchased two pounds last year (2013 crop) from two different suppliers. One was fine and the other was very grassy. Like Hoppy mentioned, when hops are harvested in their 'baby year', there can be lots of variability in their quality, but the growing conditions in the Yakima Valley are such that the growers can sometimes harvest a small crop from their first year plantings. One of the problems the growers in the Pacific NorthWest are having is that they are running short of drying capacity. This means that some hops will have to be harvested a bit earlier than the optimum which leads to less aroma (a large percent of the aroma/flavor compounds are formed within the last few days leading up to harvest). This explanation was passed on to me from a friend in the hop industry out in Oregon. Long story short, it looks like there are some grassy lots out there.