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Amarillo Onion???

bobo1898

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Hmmmm. This isn't too exciting for me.

Brewed a batch with some Amarillo 2018 from Yakima, which come in resealable pouches. Added half to primary. A week and a half later, was adding the other half to the keg. I noticed this time, that it smelled like onion/garlic.

With Amarillo, I've always gotten stone fruit or tropical aromas. When I added Amarillo to the boil (separate pouch), it smelled fine. The first addition to primary (new pouch) also smelled fine. Then the second addition, which was to the keg, from the same pouch, smelled like onion/garlic. Isn't that weird? I've only understood Summit to be oniony.

It can't be a bad batch, right? Because the first half was fine. This portion of Amarillo was mixed in with many other different hops and together the onion wasn't as prominent, but I could still detect it. I mean, we'll see when I draw a sample off how much of this kills my aroma, but has anyone ever gotten onion from Amarillo? I've never seen this and couldn't find anything in regards to it. Even Brulosophy did a hop profile from it and no one got onion/garlic.

I read somewhere that someone had one of the big C's--columbus or centennial--smell like onion when they dry hopped, but it went away in a week or two. Some people suggested it was probably just dank. I've never associated onion with dank so I'm not sure.
 
There are a fair number of newer hops that can have vegetal or "dank" qualities.

Like you, I've never had Amarillo go that direction. The usual complaint is diesel. Is there a chance your supplier mislabeled them?

Sometimes, strong vegetal aromas are associated with newer plantings (not to be confused with a newer crop) and about 3 or 4 years later, the aromatics mature. The early years of Simcoe were oniony and cat pee.

Other varieties, like Apollo and Summit (that you noted), retain that vegetal quality. A friend of mine makes an IPA with Apollo and loves it! I think it smells like garlic, onion and hot dogs.



 
brewfun said:
A friend of mine makes an IPA with Apollo and loves it! I think it smells like garlic, onion and hot dogs.

As much as we love garlic, onions and hot dogs in Chicago.....I think I literally "ugh'd" out loud when I read this. At least it makes him/her happy.

brewfun said:
Is there a chance your supplier mislabeled them?

There's always the possibility of this. The hops come in 2oz packets (resealable). Sorry if the following is on repeat: A week and a half prior, I added about an ounce of one of these full packets and it smelled fine--at least what I would associate with Amarillo. The other day, I was adding the other half and it smelled like onion/garlic. I have no more to compare, unfortunately. Same hops from the same packet with a week a part and a sudden shift in aroma. They were stored in the freezer the whole time. The packet was sealed as I had some difficulty in re-opening it initially. I even went back in to see if my freezer had that smell--like when sometimes ice cubes will take on a taste/smell of whatever you have in there. I couldn't detect anything. Like I said in my initial post, the additions that I added to the boil on brew day (which were four more ounces, another two weeks earlier), also smelled fine.

If it was a newer plant (not a crop) that was mislabeled, I wonder if aroma would shift that much within such a short period of time?
 
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