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Neomexicanus Hop Review: Chama

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Part of my series on neomexicanus hops.

Chama Hop Packet

I am a firm believer that there is a certain terroir that should go into the beers you make. The local combinations of water, malt, hops, and yeast created the beer styles we know and love today; true ingenuity comes from working to make the best with what you have. To this end, I am constantly on the lookout for truly local ingredients to use in my beers. This usually means using San Diego tap water, California grown barley, and yeast from White Labs. But where are you, sweet hops? Am I forever doomed to use varieties derived from European lupulus hops?

If you recall from my primer on neomexicanus hops, the genesis of this series occurred at the end of 2014 when I was tipped-off about a monastery in New Mexico that had successfully cultivated and began selling homebrew-sized batches of neomexicanus hops from their website. I was intrigued: here was a a brand-new set of hops that no one has even heard of from a variety that is 100% native to the American Southwest; up until this point, the only reference to neomexicanus I had seen was as a footnote in Stan Hieronymus‘ For the Love of Hops. At $8.33/oz shipped these might be the most expensive hops anyone has ever purchased, but my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I picked up 3 oz each of Chama (“citrusy, herbal, fruity”) and Latir (“spicy, herbal, flowery”).

As a way to justify the cost I resolved to do a bit of research and share the details, which became this series. Due to travel and the holiday season it took me a longer to actually brew with the hops than I was anticipating, but I am excited to finally share the review of my batch made with Chama hops. Stay tuned in the near future for my review of the Latir hops.

Chama Details

The Holy Hops website does not have the same broad analysis of the composition of Chama that they have for Latir, but they do provide the following. Interesting to note the high levels of beta acids, which are about the highest I recall seeing.

Availability: Holy Hops
Description: Citrusy, herbal, fruity.
Alpha: 7.3%
Beta: 8.2%
HSI: 22.1% (stores decently)

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Neomexicanus Wild Hop IPA Review

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Part of my series on neomexicanus hops.

Wide shot of beer and bottleIn my last post about neomexicanus hops I noted that Sierra Nevada recently released an IPA made solely from (almost the entire worldwide crop of) neomexicanus titled Harvest Wild Hop IPA: Neomexicanus Varietal as the final release in this year’s Harvest series. Since publishing that post have made it my personal goal to search every bottle shop in San Diego until I found some to try; it took me nearly three weeks, but I finally found my white whale. This blog is usually not a place where I review commercial beers, but since this beer is the closest many folks will come to trying this new variety I am making an exception.

Details

Pint, bottle, and hops in breweryStyle: IPA
Description: A few years back, we caught wind of rogue hop heads in the Southwest who began collecting some of the wild hops they found while scrambling down hillsides near their home in New Mexico. These bizarre, multi-headed, native U.S. cones have a flavor like nothing we’ve tasted, and for the first time, we’re showcasing their unusual melon, apricot and citrus aromas and flavors in our beer. Neomexicanus is the literal wild card in our five-bottle Harvest series which features single hop, fresh hop, wet hop, and wild hop beers.
Neomexicanus Variety: While not explicitly stated, the “multi-headed” variety they are referring to is likely Medusa.
Malt: 2-row Pale, Caramel [60?]
IBUs: 55
ABV: 6.5%
Availability: Nationwide in December/January.
Reviews: RateBeer | BeerAdvocate | Untappd

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Neomexicanus Hops: What’s Available

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Part 2 of my series on neomexicanus.

If you recall from part 1 of this series, there is a “new” variety of Humulus lupulus available to homebrewers called neomexicanus that has been cultivated from wild plants in New Mexico. Though the variety is nearly 500,000 years old, it has only recently been cultivated into varieties compelling to brewers. Thanks to the efforts of enterprising backyard hop growers like Todd Bates and professional growers like Eric Desmarais at CLS Farms we are on the frontier of an exciting new hop variety.

Hop Wheel (Tim Kreitz)

Hop Wheel (Tim Kreitz)

Much like neomexicanus’ European sister lupulus there is not a simple way to describe the characteristics of the hops; whether through happenstance or selective breeding there exists a broad spectrum of bitterness, flavors, and aromas that the hop can possess. Instead of attempting to describe the characteristics of neomexicanus in broad terms I am going to examine what is available at the moment whether for brewing, growing, or drinking.

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Neomexicanus Hops: A Primer

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Part 1 of my series on neomexicanus hops.

hops photo

Photo by epicbeer

Humulus lupulus: the brewer’s favorite flowering plant. Its pungent flowers, commonly referred to as hops, are responsible for the signature bitterness in beer and contribute a complex bouquet of flavors though concentrations of myrcene, humulene, xanthohumol, myrcenol, linalool, tannins, and resin. Though the lupulus variety takes up the lion’s share of the homebrewer’s attention, you might be surprised to discover there are actually five distinct varieties of the plant (six, if you include hybrids):

  • cordifolius – Eastern Asia and Japan
  • lupulus – Europe, Asia, and Africa
  • neomexicanus – Western North America
  • pubescens – Midwestern US
  • lupuloides (aka americanus) – Eastern and northern North America

As a follower of Stan Hieronymus’ blog I was recently tipped-off to the fact that a monastery in New Mexico has successfully cultivated and is selling homebrew-sized batches of neomexicanus hops from their website. Though they are perhaps the most expensive hops I have ever purchased–$50 for six ounces–like any good homebrewer my desire for experimentation knows no limits! I’ll be writing more about the beers I make with the neomexicanus hops, but since the variety is new to the homebrew and even professional brewing scenes I thought I’d do a bit of research and share the details.

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