Yazoo Hop Project # 80 Bottling Today

For this batch, which is #80 in the series, we decided to make a pretty big change.  When we began the series years and years ago, my favorite IPAs all had a dark amber color and a nice sweetness to balance out the extreme hoppiness.  Our Hop Project grain bill was heavy on the Crystal malts, the malts that give you that dark red color and the residual sweetness.  However, tastes change over time, and after the success of our 10 Yr IPA lately, we decided to change up the grain bill on Hop Projects going forward.  We think that a lighter base to the grain bill will help us highlight the hops even more.

So without further ado, here’s the notes for Hop Project #80:
We changed the grain bill on this one to get a lighter malt body, cutting out a lot of the Crystal malts and using about 30% wheat malt, and some flaked oats and wheat.  We used Bravo hops for bittering, and Citra and Falconer’s Flight for flavor and aroma, and for dry-hopping as well.

My tasting notes:   well, of course I like it!  The aroma tells you that this is going to be really hoppy, but there is a pleasant creamy sweetness from the oats that delays the initial hop bitterness.  Then the hops really shine, full of juicy tropical notes, and then on to a lingering clean bitterness.