When Stone Brewing is looking to experiment with a new hop variety, it has three standards to choose from. Steve Gonzalez, Sapporo-Stone’s Senior Manager of Brewing & Innovation—Small Batch told Brewer that when it comes to giving a hop a path toward being pilot-tested for an eventual release, it all starts with the brewery’s standard single-hop West Coast IPA, Double Hazy IPA, or Lager recipe in a pilot batch.
For a brewery as obsessed with hops as Stone is, the annual hop harvest time of year brings the opportunity for mad science. Stone’s brewers partner with hop growers to breed and experiment with new varieties of hops, including the latest, Zumo, from Segal Ranch in Washington. Named after the Spanish word for citrus zest, this hop offers a vibrant lime characteristic.
“Martin Ramos (from Segal Farms) sampled this hop while he was breeding it and thought it smelled like lime zest,” Gonzalez said. “Zumo translates roughly as ‘zest’ from Spanish to English in some countries, so we totally expected the lime qualities to shine through.”
With that thought process, Gonzalez and his team selected the West Coast IPA pilot recipe for Zumo and went to work.
“The next brew after that was the Zumology prototype,” he explained.
Zumology IPA is the newest small batch release from Stone, which showcases the new hop.
Gonzalez said that hop breeders ask Stone what they want all the time and he explained they always want to try something new.
“We have hops that do specific things, Amarillo producing tropical, Centennial giving us distinct lemon and/or grapefruit peel as examples,” he said. “Give us something we haven’t tried before.
“Zumo delivers that.”
Gonzalez admits that getting from that West Coast IPA pilot to what is being released nationwide wasn’t too hard to nail down.
“It was easy to design the beer once we had a sense of what the Zumo hops would do,” he said.
It was a 50/50 split in hop usage for Zumo with the always popular Mosaic hop.
“Mosaic typically dominates,” Gonzalez said. “It’s rare to find a companion to Mosaic that can hold up to its intensity.
“Mosaic typically blends well with other intense hops like Nelson Sauvin for example, a common combination in really intense Double IPAs like our upcoming Stone 28th Anniversary Double IPA.”
It was a bold move, he said, but they felt that the 50/50 split with Zumo would work.
“We were happy with the results,” he said. “The Zumo came to the forefront and the Mosaic enhanced the unique properties of Zumo.”
The lime qualities of the hop are very different from any other hops Gonzalez has tried.
“We get some nice lime notes from Mosaic, but those are more lime peel notes for us, whereas the Zumo really delivers on the zest aspect,” he said, adding it has unique sweet aromatic components that make this a pretty special hop.
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“Some candy-like flavors also emerged and were a surprise,” he added. “Hops like Citra have sweet aromatics that produce a caramel taste to us, so these sweet aromatic qualities are not unknown to us, but the Zumo had this unique ‘candy necklace’ note to it.”
Stone is next working Zumo into an upcoming Helles release using a new Lager malt that was produced for the Pink Boots Society.
“It will be the only aroma variety used in the beer,” he said. “We think it’s going to work very well in this Lager and we’ll include a dry-hop addition.”
Of course, other breweries will clamor to use this hop in their own small-batch releases and Gonzalez said that you don’t have to overthink it with this hop. The best choice is to brew a “beer-flavored beer.”
“By that we mean stick to malt and other grains, a standard Lager or Ale yeast, maybe combine with some other hops you like and call it good,” he said. “You don’t necessarily need to dry-hop with it.
“It makes a tasty beer with a generous whirlpool and/or late addition. Dry-hopping with it is of course awesome as well. I’d stay away from more yeast-forward styles like Saisons, but of course, brew whatever you like to brew.”
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