Our very own @FaramBeth recently went for a collaboration day with the lovely people at Abbeydale Brewery.
They were brewing with an experimental hop (CF247) from the Charles Faram Hop Development Programme. CF247 comes from the same family as Jester®, Olicana® and Harlequin®. In their own words “It’s a sticky, oily hop with low bitterness, coming in at 7-8% alpha and promising notes of tropical fruits, red berries and a bit of dank!”
It’s a great time to be experimenting with British hops as their flavours and complexity continue to develop. Abbeydale chose to brew a single malt beer as well as being single hopped.
They found on the rub that it had “an absolute cornucopia of fruit on the nose, with wafts of juicy pineapple sitting alongside homely and comforting raspberry jam.”
“Once infusing into the hot wort, spicier elements came through alongside that jamminess, with a fresh wave of citrus fruit – almost reminiscent of lime pickle!”
They found that the finished beer had “a real lip smacking flavour, with greengage sweetness and berry fruits, and a gentle bitterness in the finish, at a sessionable 4.2% ABV.”