Salvaging this Sorachi Ace IPA

Question

A few times I have made an (almost) single-hop IPA with a hop I haven't had before, to get a good idea of what it's like.

Mosaic IPA was wonderful. Nelson Sauvin IPA was very good. Now, Sorachi Ace IPA...

The basic idea is (20 liters):

OG of about 1.054
IBUs of about 43
BU:GU of about .8
Bittering hops (Magnum) at :60
The "single hop":
.5 oz at :20
.5 oz at :10
.5 oz at :05
.5 oz at flame-out
2  oz dry hop << not added yet

I just racked the Sorachi Ace one, and the "preview" taste was a little scary. I'm not sure I'm going to find this beer very enjoyable. I am considering sacrificing the "single hop" concept and dry-hopping with something else, to get something I'll like better.

I've got some spare Citra and Cascade I could use. How does that seem?

Or has anyone tried a single-hop Sorachi Ace IPA and found it to be really good, and think I should just carry on with the original plan?

Answer 1

Dry hopping with Citra or Cascacde will add aroma and flavor. If you add enough, you might be able to cover up the Sorachi Ace.

Answer 2

From my experience, Sorachi Ace hops can give a strange flavor and can be a challenge to work with. The first time we brewed with them, we took the slight "rubber band" taste as an indicator of bad yeast as described by the godfather of brewing, Charlie Papazian. After tasting other Sorachi Ace beers, it became clear that Sorachi Ace hops have an unusual flavor all to their own.

I'm also pretty much over single hop beers myself. Some hops are just better for different purposes. If you don't like the way your beer is already turning out, I would use a different hop for dry hopping. Or maybe forget dry hopping period? Adding more Sorachi Ace will only strengthen the unusual taste. I think the best place for Sorachi Ace is in the background - probably good to use it as a dry hop while using other hops for bittering and flavor so it can add an extra element to the beer instead of being featured as the single flavor.

As for our Sorachi Ace beer, we pretty much gave most of them away as a failed experiment to close brewer friends. With time, the hop flavor dissipated somewhat and the beer became more tolerable.

Answer 3

Here's what I ended up doing, and how it turned out.

I let it sit for over 2 months, to get the hop flavor to dissipate somewhat.

Then I dry-hopped (for 3 or 4 days) with 2 ounces of Citra.

At bottling time, the Sorachi Ace flavor was definitely still there, and quite strong. At that point it reminded me of oak. I thought that a beer that seemed like an oaked IPA might be okay.

Now that's it's conditioned it doesn't seem oaky to me any more. The flavor has a fair bit of "dill", and the lemon aspect seems to me more like lemon peel.

Now here's the surprising thing... I love this beer! I'm definitely glad I dry-hopped with Citra instead of more Sorachi Ace, but this beer is pretty darn nice!

Answer 4

I've made IPAs where I felt that they were just too sweet, the FG too high to allow the hop flavor to come forward (Azacca hops specifically, among others I'm certain that would be similar). In addition to Denny's recommendation, you may also try back-sweetening the beer to see if that helps cut through the hop flavor. Using lactose, you can take a pyrex measuring cup, and create a water/lactose mix, microwave it to boil, chill it down, then add it to a graduated cylinder filled with your beer in small doses. Take gravity readings to see the FG rise up, mix well, and sample to see if it increasing the FG makes the hop flavor more palettable.

I've also noticed hop aroma/flavor completely transform with enough age. I tried my hand at a similar recipe to Troeg's Nugget Nectar last year, and after having damn near empty the keg at a party, what left turned into what could best be described as orange juice in less than a week. I cried when that keg kicked.