I heard about the Sam Adams Latitude 48 Deconstructed pack a couple months ago — an IPA brewed with 5 kinds of hops coming in a 6-pack with the normal beer and then 5 versions brewed with just one of those hops.  It sounded like a great way to try out the individual hop varieties, but I hadn’t been able to find it locally.  Luckily, my wife is more resourceful, and gave me a pack for my birthday.  So of course we had to do a 5-way tasting.

Unsurprisingly, they varied immensely.  Both in flavor and in aroma, they ran the gamut.  So on to the hops:

EKG: We both liked this the best, very mellow, earthy.  Herby, with a definite Henna taste.  Smells like wort, probably because we’ve brewed with these before.  “The comfort food of beer”.

Zeus: This reminded me of Swamp Head’s BigNose IPA or Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, especially the aroma, which is very sweet and almost floral.  Very strong start of citrus, sharpness and pine, but finishes more mild.  “Punch-you-in-the-face”.

Hallertau: Very smooth, almost sweet, and mellow.  No aroma at all that we could identify.  What I think of when I think of hops in general (again because most of our homebrew batches have used them).  “It’s drinkable”.

Simcoe: Delicate and sweet aroma, like Zeus but milder.  A ton of pine, very high pitched, thin and very bitter.  “Everything I fear in an IPA”.

Ahtanum: Aroma somewhere between the EKG and Zeus.  Much mellower than the Simcoe/Zeus, but that telltale back-of-the-tongue bitterness that makes me hate most IPAs.  Intense piney finish.  “Fine as long as you don’t stop”.

In the end, neither of us like IPAs much (though I’m warming to a few).  And obviously we wouldn’t normally choose to drink the composite beer, nor any of these single-hop components.  But it was fascinating to have the hops broken out separately and be able to dissect them minutely.  I definitely recommend picking up this pack if you can find it.

Now if only somebody would make a pack deconstructing malts…