How do you do?

[CJ]

Hello all,

Chris from Devon, England here. Been playing around with the recipe tools etc last night, and I think this has to be the best brewers' tools site I've used, and I think I may have used most of them now. Fantastic. I especially like the water tools, and everything is just so user friendly and intuitive.

Anyhoo, my brewery (Mighty Imperial Brewing Co.) is an all grain 5 (UK) Gal plastic system, 28l MLT from a converted coolbox. Fermenting in plastic wine fermenters in a temperature controlled fridge, and I bottle condition exclusively. I've been brewing about 2 and a half years and favour bold, hoppy American styles - IPA, APA, West Coast Red etc. Saying that, I think my oatmeal stout might be one of my all time favourites!

I'm entering my first competition this year (British Nationals) to try and get some feedback on my brewing.

Cheers all!

 

[LarryBrewer]

Welcome to the fold! Glad to you hear you like our tools and they are easy to use!

Is it pretty easy to get American hops in the UK?

We have the 'domestic' clones of Goldings, Fuggle, etc. Here we have to pay double if we want the authentic UK hops and I've never sprung for it. The home brew store staff say it is the same... but I wonder...

 

[CJ]

Hi! Yeah, definitely. Not sure how the prices stack up but I'm paying around £3.50 to £4.20 for 4oz of US hops.

I use a small but really good online retailer here in the UK (Not sure if I'm allowed to name them) who can get pretty much everything from the US from Apollo, Bravo all the C's including Citra (a very popular one in the UK now), Horizon, Nugget, Summit, Simcoe to Warrior and Willamette, and pretty much everything in between. That's the range for whole hops, anyway. The range of pellets is smaller, but I only really use whole hops, for that reason. They're superb quality and really well packaged so they're super fresh and resiny when I open them up. One he's got in recently is called "Experimental 366" which sounds really intriguing. I feel a "366 IPA" is on the cards!

 

[LarryBrewer]

That's a decent price, about $1.25/oz. Of course, by the pound / Kg the prices do get cheaper. I'm looking at buying Amarillo and Simcoe like that next year.

I've been seeing some additional New Zealand varieties at the LHBS as well. 366 IPA sounds neat to try.

It is fine to name the LHBS/shop here, if they are a good company, let everybody know.