St Peters Honey Porter Kit Additional Hops

[Paulus]

Hi All,

I've just finished a St Peters Honey Porter kit and am not impressed by the fake sweet taste (supposedly honey).
I have read (after buy 2 kits) that it does have this unpleasant taste so would like to know if anyone can recommend a hop for dry hopping that might help to offset
the too sweet flavour?

I imagine just adding the hops near the end of fermentation (about the 1.02 SG mark). I don't see citric flavours working too well. The kit already has Goldings
in the LME so maybe more of the same? I quite like the description of Fuggles as well.

Also, any idea of how much to add would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[MrRook]

You can't go wrong with goldings.

 

[Graz]

IMHO with regards to that kit I think the old saying applies "you can't polish a turd (but you can roll it in glitter)". Not sure any amount of extra hops is going to mask the artificial honey taste you describe and that also puts that kit on my "done it once, never again" list.

From what I remember it wasn't so bad I didn't drink it but I try a different kit in future. So of the generic pale ale type kits really do benefit from a bit of tweaking such as adding some dry hops at the end.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'd agree, it's not really one of those flavours you can do much about, and even if I was to polish the turd, I probably wouldn't use hops, they're not going to help much.

My first instinct would be to just bin it - life's too short to drink bad beer - but just as an experiment to test my beer-rescue skills, I would lean into the honey with ginger, and maybe a bit of chipotle chilli.

 

[Paulus]

I'd agree, it's not really one of those flavours you can do much about, and even if I was to polish the turd, I probably wouldn't use hops, they're not going to help much.

My first instinct would be to just bin it - life's too short to drink bad beer - but just as an experiment to test my beer-rescue skills, I would lean into the honey with ginger, and maybe a bit of chipotle chilli.

That sounds interesting, what sort of quantities of ground or fresh ginger would have an effect on 23L?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I don't know, it depends on your personal taste and the strength of the ginger, but a few grams? Ideally I would test it just in a glassful just to get it roughly right. It's easy to do too much ginger and chilli, a little can be great but too much can be terrible - and it does depend on your taste. They can also be a great combination in cider.