Hops Sensory Training With ORB 27Aug20

Kala & I attended the special Outer Range Brewing Hops Sensory Training offered to the 250 Summit Club members. It was an online zoom meeting with the Cleghorns (Lee is an ORB co-founder and is the master brewer and Emily, his wife, did administration during the meeting). It was excellent and a lot more fun and informative than we'd imagined it could be. I'd received a packet of 7 packets of hops prior to the training, along with my Golden Ticket allowing me and a +1 to enjoy a day of drinking & dining at ORB.

ORB is acknowledged as one of the very best in the country. They are especially expert in hazy IPAs which some call New England IPAs. Folks from all over the world come to Frisco to work with Lee on collaborations, which are canned and kegged for transport to home turf, and of course offered right at ORB, till they are gone. We are lucky to have them in Summit. DD and I joined the fairly exclusive Summit Club last December, and have enjoyed its benefits since - this new event was in lieu of a big party we'd expected in the fall hops-harvesting season but Covid 19 dampened everyones' spirits for that and this was an innovative alternative. Hosting the show was Lee Cleghorn and his wife Emily (I forget the name of the music guy but he's from ORB too). We started by learning about hops farming, production and the supply chain and a lot more about how ORB specifically behaves on selecting, contracting and using hops. Fascinating stuff including that ORB:

• Buys 42.5K pounds of hops annually in producing 5K barrels of beer - much higher % than most other brewers (given the focus on hazy IPAs). He contracts years in advance and selects hops after visiting cultivators; if you don;t, you get what's left over.
• Doesn't use much hops in the boil but uses lots at lower temps in a whirlpool and during dry hopping - which they do relatively early.
• Ignores IBUs and alpha acid levels in hops for the most part (AA ranges from 2%-25% and somewhat helps determine bitterness of beer) and depends on taste.
• Uses pelletized hops exclusively (as do most brewers) except for fresh hop creation where the cones themselves are used.
• ORB uses a lot of oats in their hazies; ORB primarily use British pale malts in most of their beers; ORB mostly cultivates and uses their own yeasts from originally British and American strains 

We then moved on to the crux of the meeting - hops sensory training. We cracked open our special packets of pellets and partook of the smell (not taste) by crushing pellets in our hands and releasing the essential oils captured within. The music guy gave us 1 minute per hops variety (where Kala and I smelled and discussed) and then Lee led a reveal of his sensory perception of the variety and provided other details on the strain. What's remarkable is how many of the beers I drink employ hops only  recently cultivated. Here are my "tasting" notes coupled with Lee's primary observations as well as some emblematic beers he's made with the varietal - I must say, I have been fortunate to have tasted almost all of these.

• Mosaic (2012 US) - manky trees, pine shrubs, blueberry-mango [Blocks of Light & Two Pound Tent]
• Wai-Ti (2011 New Zealand) - dirt, ginger, apricot, lime [Steezy & Drenched]
• *Talus/Experimental HBC 692 (2020 US) - chocolate, dried roses, citrus, sage [Valley Views]
• *Citra Cryo (2008 US/Yakima) - citrus, tropical flowers, grapefruit [In The Steep] - cryo means immediate immersion of hops into deep freeze and allows more essential oil per pellet ~ so much so in fact that Lee uses 50% less hops if he gets the cryo version
• Hallertau-Mittlefruh (pre-history/Germany) - herbal, earthy, spicy [many hazy-juicy IPAs use this also thier Kicker pilsner]
• Nelson Sauvin (New Zealand) - white wine, papaya (very high thyols in fermentation) [Wheelie Nelson & Future Of Parties]
• *Strata (2009) - pine, dank, strawberry

Tomorrow we vote on the 3 hops to be brewed into a Summit Club DIPA. What a gr8 time. 

UPDATE... The votes are in and my voting must've counted a lot as as you can see from the original post above, the 3 hops chosen were exactly my votes too!

 UPDATE 11Oct20... Tasting the Party Alone Together was awesome. One for the ages.