At Firestone Walker, we’ve become something of a “blending house” when it comes to hops, with beers such as Luponic Distortion and Mind Haze featuring blends of up to seven different cultivars on the dry-hopping side.
It’s truly amazing how hops can interplay with each other—as complements or amplifiers of flavors, or even to create new flavors through the alchemy of blending. It’s something I’m very passionate about, and I’d like to share some insight into how we go about it.
Boosting the Blends
My fascination with hop blending took off while visiting hop growers in Europe many years ago. I was actually hunting down more traditional hops for our beers. But as so often happens on these visits, I learned of new and exciting varieties with which I hadn’t yet brewed. I was in Germany selecting hops for our lagers when I was introduced to Mandarina Bavaria, Hüll Melon, and Hallertauer Blanc, all released by Anton Lutz and the Hüll hop-breeding team as new fruit-forward “flavor hops.” We later incorporated two of these hops in a then-new release, Easy Jack IPA, allowing us to ride the session IPA wave with our own unique story and flavor profile.