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2012 Hop Shortages - Are Commercial Brewers Changing Recipes??!

philm63

Grandmaster Brewer
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I've recently discovered the shortages in Citra, Amarillo, and Simcoe during a recent visit to my LHBS - these are a few of my favorites, of course! Guess I'll try some new varieties - what better way to see what else is out there, no?

What's more; it seems some commercial breweries may have changed their recipes to account for the shortages in some of these hops - backed off on the amounts of some varieties or changed to other types.

Not sure how true this is but one thing I know for sure; 6-packs of a couple of my favorite IPAs I just bought do NOT taste like they did a couple of months ago, and I heard that one of our local breweries here in Metro Atlanta has changed their recipes already so I think there is probably something to the shift in flavor I'm detecting here, otherwise I've experienced a serious lupulin threshold shift drinking my latest batch of IPA (it was quite hoppy and delicious, if I do say so myself - hopped with Columbus, Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, Citra and Amarillo).

Anybody else experience any changes in their favorite commercial IPAs recently? Any ideas on replacement varieties for some of these hops?
 
Breweries contract their hops and unless they miscalculated a year ago, they should not have had issues with hops varieties.  Smaller brewpubs do run into issues especially when they don't contract.  I typically see them start to offer different beers like a Scotch Ale or Imperial Stouts, etc.  In a way, I like it as I get to see new things from the brew pubs.  I visited Lagunitas a few weeks ago and there was no shortage of hops there.  Same with Heretic Brewing.

For us homebrewers, it sucks.  I am sitting here with no DIPA because "I can't get no Amarillo or Citra".
 
Just placed some orders for hops, some from here, some from there, took a while but I got all of my favorites. Also looked at a few newer varieties I'd not seen before and was wondering if anyone has tasting notes on some of these:

Zythos, Motueka, Pacific Jade, and Topaz.

I'm looking for different hops primarily for Pale Ales and IPAs.
 
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