BRU-1 West Coast IPA - Tasting

BRU-1 West Coast IPA - Tasting

For this beer I wanted to experiment with the BRU-1 hop variety. I ordered a pound of pellets from Yakima Valley Hops. The main descriptor for this hop is pineapple. Some more generic descriptors are “green fruit”, “sweet fruit” and “green-grassy”.

Recipe for this post can be found here.

Appearance

The beer has a fluffy white head that sticks around for some time leaving a good amount of lacing on the glass. The color is a golden amber. It’s clear but not completely so. It’s been kegged for about 2 weeks so I would expect it to clear up even more as time goes on.

Aroma

The nose isn’t as expressive as I expected. I get some sweet fruit and a general green smell. There may also be a hint of spices in the aroma as well.

Taste/Mouthfeel

The beer is light-medium in body with medium carbonation. There is quite a bit of sweet pineapple up front, it’s followed by the green character with some bitterness and a mild lingering sweetness.

BRU-1 Impressions

This is a pretty unique hop. It’s sweet character is a little too much for a west coast IPA, but I think it would work great in a New England IPA (and have used it in a recent batch). I can see this hop pairing well with a lot of the new school varieties.

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