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Fuggle vs Golding hops – tasting round

January 25, 2015 by Gilad

It’s been a while since I had a chance to write here and last weekend my wife and I finally had a proper tasting of the Black Ale that was split on hops – each batch got dry hopping with a different hops variety: Golding vs Fuggle hops.

The beer itself is my standard Black Ale from an extract. It had the right color, been boiled with Fuggles and resulted with a 3.89% ABV – a littler lower than the usual, but still ok. To the comparison:

The same:

Both beers presented same ABV, same color, and same quantity. The process was kept exactly the same throughout, so nothing will be different, but besides what I mentioned, they are completely different, so, in which why?

The difference:

Goldings: Aroma is floral and slightly sweet (my wife called it “better”), the flavour is round and malty with a light bitter end. Altogether a very nice and “fuller” version of the Black Ale.

Fuggles: Earthy and tangy aroma, sweeter on the tongue but bitter and tangy flavor. Much more “aggressive” tasting beer and it had a much better head than the Goldings.

The result is excellent as it shows that dry hopping works only on aromas and on the “higher” flavors, which allows for a lot more to play with. The difference between the two version is surprising, though, I wasn’t expecting changes in how malty the beer will feel, but it did, and it was great.

At the end of the day, I prefer the Fuggles hops version – it is the “original” taste I had for the Black Ale and it is the taste I’m looking to stay with. The Goldings version was excellent, but the change was too big in opinion, so i will need to utilize Goldings hops in other places.

Better head on the Fuggles version than the Goldings version

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Filed Under: Beer tasting Tagged With: Black Ale, Fuggles Hops, Goldings hops

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  • Beer ramble
  • Beer tasting
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  • Hops

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