Neighbour's ornamental hops growing over the fence into my garden

[NotSure]

Hi all,
Has anyone had any experience brewing a green hop beer with ornamental hops? I was planning on brewing an IPA in the next few weeks, but then I was out back in the garden and noticed the hop vine from the neighbours growing into my garden with some very tasty looking hops.

My wife asked the neighbour if they were just ornamental hops and she said they were and probably wouldn't be good in beer. We live in East Kent, so who knows. My understanding from the little information out there is that as long as the leaves aren't yellow, it might turn out OK.

Figuring I'm making green hop beer, I was going to use 5X the usual amount. I also read somewhere that a lot of ornamental hops are related to Cascade, so was going to assume about 5% alpha.

Has anyone had any experience they could lend here?

 

[MashBag]

Might it help to wait for harvest, and then dry them. That way you might get a better feel for what they are and how to utilise.

Ornamental my armpit. I reckon they will be brewing hops unless they planted them a few months ago and have a pretty label from the garden centre......

Cascade works nicely smash IPA at 100-130g pellets. I would x5 for green.

 

[Clarence]

Green hop beers work well. As for ornamental, isn't First Gold sold as an ornamental under the name of Prima Donna? I make a standard pale ale, IBU about 1045-1050 and BUs 40 using a neutral bittering hop. I then divide the green crop in two putting half in to boil for 5 minutes and the rest in a <80C soak for 20 minutes. My crop is usually between 70 and 120 grams of fresh hops. Get the beer going so you can pick the hops while it's boiling and use the as fresh as possible.
Works for me.

 

[MashBag]

Good reminder.. I better go and check mine...

 

[MashBag]

Green hop beers work well. As for ornamental, isn't First Gold sold as an ornamental under the name of Prima Donna? I make a standard pale ale, IBU about 1045-1050 and BUs 40 using a neutral bittering hop. I then divide the green crop in two putting half in to boil for 5 minutes and the rest in a <80C soak for 20 minutes. My crop is usually between 70 and 120 grams of fresh hops. Get the beer going so you can pick the hops while it's boiling and use the as fresh as possible.
Works for me.

That's good. I like that. Just use them for finishing.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My wife asked the neighbour if they were just ornamental hops and she said they were and probably wouldn't be good in beer. We live in East Kent, so who knows. My understanding from the little information out there is that as long as the leaves aren't yellow, it might turn out OK.

Figuring I'm making green hop beer, I was going to use 5X the usual amount. I also read somewhere that a lot of ornamental hops are related to Cascade, so was going to assume about 5% alpha.

Lots to unpack here. First off - a lot of the above is not quite right for the UK. To start with - USians talk about using 5x wet hops in place of dried hops, but all the British brewers I've spoken to use mostly 7x for green hops, sometimes 6x. Whether that's just because hops in our climate end up wetter or that's just the ratio that works with our flavours, I don't know. But use more not less.

In the UK if you've got yellow-leaved hops in a garden, then it's not going to be a US variety. If it's dwarf (ie "only" 3-4m high) then it will be Golden Tassels, if it's full height then it could be Sunshine (top hop-geek fact, Sunshine and her more famous granddaughter Comet are one of only a couple of bittering varieties that don't have any ancestry from the main Wye BB1 lineage - and have nothing to do with Cascade either) or Humulus lupulus 'Aureus' which from what I can tell may have started as a golden mutation of a landrace hop but which now seems to get treated by garden centres as a species name for any hop with yellow leaves.

And since you're in East Kent, it's always possible that it was brought home by someone (or a friend of someone) who worked at a hop farm and happened to see a mutant plant.

Just as a general comment - it's a waste using green hops for bittering unless you have too many to use for flavour. The whole point of green hops is that you get the delicate, delicious, volatile compounds in the beer that are normally lost in drying - and if you're going to boil them for an hour then you might as well use dried hops. So you want to start at the other end - start with dry hopping, if you have enough then whirlpool with green hops as well, then keep working backwards through the boil if you have enough hops.

So the alpha content doesn't really matter - but if you're interested you can guesstimate it by boiling up a hop tea with a known amount of your green hop and comparing the bitterness with a parallel tea made with a hop of known alpha acid. Sunshine has about 7-8% alpha, but most other ornamentals will be rather less than that.

But don't hang about - use them the same day as picking them, ideally pick whilst you're boiling, green hops go off really quickly.

 

[NotSure]

Thank you @MashBag @Clarence and @Northern_Brewer for the input. It was extremely useful. I was on the fence (pun intended) regarding using the hops as bittering in addtion to a late addition. However, I think I have some Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, and Pilgrim on hand which I could use one of for bittering. I'll certainly pick the hops in the garden fresh during brew day.

Funny @Northern_Brewer mentioned about the hops being brought home by someone working on a hop farm.... the lady next door (over the fence) grew up here and told us she use to go on the hop harvest with all the women of the village back in the day.

 

[peebee]

Brian Yorston on green hop beer (posted for its motivational value!):

https://brewlab.co.uk/green-hop-beer/

 

[dtashmore]

many years ago I came across a wild hop bine and froze the whole crop, used them at the hop streams stage, one of the best ales I ever made. I am now cultivating my own bine to try and replicate the result.
my advise is to grab then all when ready and freeze them until required, you did need to use a lot of them per brew