We taste a fine blonde ale from John this week. The magic of this brew is the entire use of homegrown hops for throughout. Namely, he even used homegrown hops to bitter his beer.

Many people on the ‘interwebs’ will cry foul of trying to bitter your brew knowing the alpha acid content. We say poo-poo to them. We have found that when using homegrown hops you CAN assume the alpha is in the predicted range for breed of hop you are using. In the end, you might be off by a few IBUs from what the try alpha might say, but its not noticeable.

More importantly brewing is an art. People condemn bittering with homegrown hops because we tend to forget how great beer is made. Great beer never comes out of a piece of software, magazine or water calculator. It’s a function of brewing a beer, tasting it, re-developing the recipe or process and brewing it again.

The same goes with homegrown hops. If you assume the alpha to be in an average range then you’ll make good beer. If it’s not bitter enough or over hoppy, then make your adjustment and brew it again. We can never emphasize enough the necessity of brewing and re-brewing to get better. If burning a 5 gallon batch on homegrown hops is too much risk for you, then brew a pilot one gallon batch and see where those hops get you.

The bigger problem, as I see it, with homegrown hops is in the essential oil content. The essential oils responsible for aroma is often really effected by growing conditions and harvest time. More so than the alpha content. So homegrown hops, in my opinion, are more likely to let you down as aroma hops. There I said it, the opposite of what everyone else tells you about homegrown hops.

Well watch the video and take our tips under advisement. Leave a comment if you have experience with homegrown bittering hops.