The Hop Chronicles | Denali (2015) Pale Ale

Author: Marshall Schott

I’ve often wondered what it’s like, after years of breeding and testing, to discover a truly unique and delectable hop. As someone whose farming experience amounts to having one time been asked to feed a neighbor’s chickens, I really have no clue the amount of work that goes into this process. And I can only imagine the satisfaction and excitement experienced by growers when a hop they’ve been working on so long produces a gorgeous aromatic bouquet, something I’ve accepted I’ll never get to fully experience.

But I recently came close… sorta.

Hop breeder and all-around badass, Bill Elkins, from Hopsteiner reached out to me awhile back saying he had an experimental hop he wanted me to run through The Hop Chronicles, a variety they’d recently green-lighted for contracting with breweries that had yet to be given a proper name at the time, though will soon be released commercially as “Denali.” 

Alpha: 15-17%
Beta: 4-5%
Cohumulone: 22-25%
Total Oil: 4% vol/wt
Myrcene: 55%
Humulene: 16%
Caryophyllene: 6%
Farnesene: 0.19%
Linalool: 0.23%
Parentage: Nugget, other

Bill shared that Denali had been noted as having juicy fruit, pineapple, tropical, and citrus character, imparting a clean bitterness with very full flavor driven by exceptional oil content. “Okay, so another IPA hop,” I thought, “probably similar to so many other new age varieties.” But who am I to refuse playing around with something novel? I let Bill know I was down and  the following day he informed me a “fresh bale cut” was on the way.

I’ve never had a fresh bale cut before.

Later that week, a package lighter than its size would suggest showed up at my house. When I opened it, a feeling that I’d gotten away with something illegal washed over me, and the aroma that hit my face was… my word, it was fucking beautiful, honestly like no hop I’d smelled before, I imagine this had much to do with the freshness factor. I peered at the wrapped hop cube in the mylar packaging and noticed oil spots all over the butcher paper.

Love at first whiff. This was getting fun! I gently unwrapped the compressed hop brick and the aroma filled my garage.

I proceeded to break the brick into more manageable sized pieces, packaging 8 oz for my amazing brewer friend, Sean Wood, who agreed to make the beer for this go-round.

| MAKING THE BEER |

A couple days before brewing, Sean made a starter from harvested WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast I’d provided him. This would end up being one of the last times we used the THC Pale Ale recipe for The Hop Chronicles, as we’ll be using a 2-row SMaSH henceforth to truly exemplify the hop character.

Being the flawless brewer he is, Sean nailed the target mash temp and OG.

Following the 1 hour mash, the sweet wort was collected and put through a boil with all hops added as stated in the recipe.

Following a 15 minute hop stand at 170˚F/77˚C, the wort was chilled to 66˚F/19˚C and placed in a temperature controlled chamber where it was then pitched and fermented. The beer was resting at the target final gravity 10 days later and Sean cold crashed overnight, fined with gelatin, then kegged it up. Once fully carbonated, he bottled some bombers to give to me for data collection.

| METHOD |

Participants were instructed to focus only on the aromatic qualities of the beer before moving on to evaluating the flavor. For each aroma and flavor descriptor, tasters were first asked whether or not they perceived the characteristic with “yes” selections taking them to a page instructing them to write-in the perceived strength of that particular characteristic on a 1-9 scale (weak to strong); endorsing “no” resulted in the taster skipping over the rating of that descriptor directly to the next descriptor. Once the data was collected, the average rating of each aroma and flavor descriptor was compiled with all “no” responses being assigned a score of zero.

| RESULTS |

Twelve people participated in the evaluation of this beer, all blind to the hop variety used. The average ratings for each descriptor were plotted on a radar graph.

Average Ratings of Aroma and Flavor Perceptions

The 3 characteristics endorsed as being most prominent by participants:

The 3 characteristics endorsed as being least prominent by participants:

When asked to rate the pungency/strength of the hop, all but one taster endorsed it as being moderately pungent.

Tasters were then instructed to identify beer styles they thought the hop would work well in.

Finally, participants were asked to rate how much they enjoyed the hop character on a 1 to 9 scale.

My Impressions: The very first thing I thought after opening the mylar bag and inhaling was “sweet lemon,” not necessarily the way Meyer lemon zest smells, but rather the aromatic qualities of Denali came across to me the way a well-made lemon tart smells– sweet, zesty, citrusy. After giving some cones a good rub in my palms, I began to pick up a menagerie of perfectly ripe tropical fruits that made me pine for a glass of POG. I anticipated tasting Sean’s finished beer more than I usually do, you can imagine my excitement when he delivered my portion to me. From the first sip to the end of the bottle, I experienced the hop character imparted by Denali as nothing short of remarkable, chock full of juicy fresh fruit layered with whispers of pineapple and zesty citrus. I wondered how I was going to be able to keep my hands off of it… more about that in a bit.

| CONCLUSION |

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was first introduced to Denali nearly a year ago when Matt Humbard published an article about his experience using it for his experimental hop project. He reported experiencing the aroma as being a 7/10 in terms of intensity with strong notes of orange followed by mild fresh cut grass and pineapple. Having read this at the time but failing to make the connection until Bill informed me Nuggetzilla was indeed Denali and 06277, I found Matt’s comments to be quite similar to my own experience. I didn’t notice any grass character and the citrus was more lemon-esque than orange-y to me, but our general experience seemed to line up rather well.

About those 12 participants, that small-ish sample size requiring no more than 3 bombers of beer. It was only that way because I lost track of how many bottles I had left. For the first time since I’ve been doing this shit, I actually ran out of beer before I’d collected all the data I planned to collect. Imagine my surprise when, while drinking a deliciously full pint of Denali Pale Ale, I discovered it was the last of 8 bombers Sean gave me. While 12 tasters meets my standards for The Hop Chronicles, I was disappointed in myself for being so careless, though I suppose it was worth the trade-off of discovering a new favorite hop.

A huge thanks to Sean for brewing this batch and for being one of the coolest Sean’s I know, it’s guys like Sean that make me realize how great this community is. Sean.

Available NOW at Yakima Valley Hops in 2 oz, 8 oz, or 16 oz portions.

If you’ve used or tasted beer made with Denali/Nuggetzilla/06277, please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Support for this edition of The Hop Chronicles comes from Hopsteiner, a leading grower, trader, and processor of high quality beer hops since 1845.

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