Sly Fox Hop Project 2009
This past Friday was the annual Hop Project Day at Sly Fox Brewery in Phoenixville, PA, in celebration of their 14th anniversary! Throughout the year, they brew eleven single hopped beers (this year, it was pale ale). Then in December, they release their Odyssey Imperial IPA brewed with all eleven hop varieties, tapped alongside all eleven single hopped beers, making for a fantastically hop-filled event!
All eleven pale ales were brewed with the same base recipe, giving an OG of 13 brix, 30 IBUs, and 5.0% ABV. The only variable amongst them was the single hop variety used for each beer. In doing so, the differences between each hop variety was easily perceived, making for an interesting (and delicious) experiment.
The grain bill chosen as the base for each pale ale was perfect for allowing the hops to shine through — clean, lightly malty, and somewhat dry. It’s unclear what the hop addition schedule was, and whether or not they dry hopped the pale ales. Regardless, each pale ale tasted distinctly different from the rest.
The eleven pale ales were available in three sets of flights, along with the 2009 Odyssey, firkins of the 2008 and 2009 Odyssey, and their flagship Rt. 113 IPA on cask. The waitress pointed out the extreme beer geekiness at our table, as we took diligent notes while we tasted each and every beer in all the flights.
So, how did they taste? Good thing I took such diligent notes!
Amarillo
The hop: US origin, 8-11% AA (alpha acid)
The beer: Amarillo is one of my favorite hops, and likewise, this pale ale was one of my favorites of the evening. Pungent, citrus aroma and flavor, with a slight resinous note. Beautiful.
Argentinean Cascade
The hop: The popular Cascade hop varietal, grown in Argentina instead of Pacific Northwest US, 3-3.5% AA
The beer: Much like US grown Cascade, this hop had a definite citrus character, just not as pronounced. It had a gentle lemon flavor that I liked.
Boadicea
The hop: UK origin, bread to be resilient to aphids, 8-9.5% AA
The beer: This was a new hop to me. It had a very mild aroma and flavor. It was delicate, slightly spicy, and reminiscent of noble hops, which was surprising to me based on the fairly high alpha acidity.
Columbus
The hop: US origin, 14-16% AA
The beer: This one was my favorite. Wonderfully pungent, herbal, citrus, and incredibly flavorful. Woo!
Crystal
The hop: US origin, 3.5-5.5% AA
The beer: Good, clean bitterness, with just a little citrus and floral character.
Liberty
The hop: Grown in the US, bred from the German noble hop Hallertauer Mittelfruh, 3-5% AA
The beer: Nice aroma, floral and slightly grassy. The bitterness was smooth, with a sweet, floral flavor and clean aftertaste.
Marynka
The hop: Polish origin, 5-10% AA
The beer: Another new hop to me, and a pretty odd one. It had a slight woody flavor, with hints of tobacco, though it was very mild.
Palisade
The hop: US origin, 5.5-9.5% AA
The beer: This one had a mild aroma, a little spicy, with an odd, soapy finish. Not my fave.
Sovereign
The hop: A newer UK varietal, 5-7% AA
The beer: Slightly spicy, sort of like a noble hop, but much more bitter. Not a whole lot of character in this one really.
Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV)
The hop: UK origin, bred in an attempt to create a Goldings hop with higher alpha acid content, 5-7% AA
The beer: Meh, this one was pretty boring. There just wasn’t much character there for me to detect.
Willamette
The hop: US grown hybrid of the British hop Fuggle, 4-6% AA
The beer: Mild, slightly sweet, and floral. Subtle and tasty.
Odyssey 2009
The hops: All of the above
Stats: 18.6 OG, 90 IBUs, 8.4% ABV
The beer: Quite bitter, almost biting at first, but it smooths out in the end. The hop flavor and aroma is floral, spicy, and very complex. I really enjoyed this!
From the firkin: I have a feeling that something went wrong with this firkin, because there was absolutely no head, it was almost completely flat, and there was just not as much character compared to the non-firkin one.
Odyssey 2008
The hops: Amarillo, Aurora, Cascade, Cluster, Fuggle, Galena, Horizon, Mt. Rainier, Perle, Sterling, Styrian
Stats: 18.6 OG, 90 IBUs, 8.4% ABV
From the firkin: I really don’t believe in aging IPAs, and this is a perfect example of why. There was no hop character! Booo hissss…
Rt. 113 IPA
The hops: Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, German Northern Brewer, UK East Kent Goldings
Stats: 16.4 OG, 113 IBUs, 7.0% ABV
From the hand pump: Mmm… Smooth and spicy, with a lovely citrus nose. I love this combination of C-hops. A great IPA!
Sadly, this year marked the final Hop Project. But they are discontinuing it for a good reason. Brewing a single hopped beer once a month was eating up brewing time and space that could have been used to make new beers, as well as some pub favorites.
The brewer, Brian O’Reilly, has ensured us all through the Sly Fox News feed that the annual December party is still on for 2010. And the exciting part of this is that next December, for their 15th anniversary, they’ll be moved into their brand new location across the street!
I look forward to seeing what Sly Fox has in store for us next year. Best of luck with the move, guys. Cheers!
15 Comments to “Sly Fox Hop Project 2009”
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What a great idea – I love that they have the single hoppers and then the big one at the end! I’m really interested in single variety beer. The mikkeller ones are good but they are 7% and very bitter, good to see these are a more modest 30IBU. Great post!
The 30 IBUs was definitely enough to get a good taste of each hop, rather than each one being a hop bomb, killing your tastebuds with each sip. This is actually the first year they did pale ales instead of IPAs for the Hop Project. I think it was a great choice!
That is an awesome concept.
I would add, though, that a second variable is the age of the beers. Did you know which beers were brewed when? Could you perceive any differences that might be owed to variable freshness?
Unfortunately, I didn’t have that information. That was definitely something I thought of as I was tasting them. A pale ale that was brewed in January certainly wouldn’t have as strong a hop character today. I wish I had gotten that info!
Right. At any rate, it sounds great. When I buy a pound of hops I don’t have a lot of experience with I’ll often do a single-hop brew to get a good handle on that variety.
i LOVE this idea. I certainly understand about the feasibility of doing it frequently, but what a great way to really get to know your hops!
Absolutely! I’d love to figure out a good way to do this kind of experiment at home. It would be fairly easy to separate a 5-gallon batch of wort into five 1-gallon fermentation vessels and dry hop with different varieties, but not as easy to actually separate the wort pre-boil to use different hops in the boil. Would be fun to figure out a way though…
@Steph
I wonder how well this would work:
- Bitter with something fairly neutral and unobtrusive
- Set up multiple hop backs each with a different variety
- Run off, say, 1 gallon through each hop back on the way to a CFC
- Ferment separately and dry-hop with the same variety you used in the hop back
I’ve never used a hop back before so I don’t know how much flavor you get from it, but supposedly you do get some. I think one of the keys is that you’re running hot wort through it on the way to chilling (either with a CFC or plate chiller perhaps), so I don’t think this would work so well with an immersion chiller.
* In step 1, I forgot to add “like Magnum.”
I like that idea! We recently got a Therminator, and we’ve been wanting to build a hop back. I might have to try this at some point. Thanks for the idea!
You could run off the wort reeeaaal slowly or even let some steep in the hop back for a while to extract more flavor, I bet.
If you do something like this, you must report back on how it went!
[...] I wrote about Sly Fox’s annual Hop Project, held at the Phoenixville location. It was announced that this year was the final Hop [...]
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