Northern Brewer is the classic dual-purpose bittering hop that I associate with traditional American homebrewing from the 1980s and 1990s — it was one of the standard hop varieties before the explosion of specialty craft varieties, and it earned that
Fuggle is the hop that I associate more than any other with the character of traditional English ales.
Hallertau is the German hop that I consider the benchmark for noble hop character — the variety that all other European noble hops are implicitly compared to, and the one I use in Helles and Märzen recipes when I want …
Before switching to Brewfather I ran my entire brewing operation on a Google Sheets spreadsheet — recipe calculations, water chemistry, batch logs, ingredient inventory, everything in one workbook.
Jester is a UK hop variety I started using after reading that it had been bred specifically to bring American-style grapefruit hop character into the British market using UK-grown hops.
Brewer’s Gold is one of those classic English hop varieties that has largely fallen out of fashion but deserves more attention than it gets from modern homebrewers.
Glacier is one of those American hop varieties I keep coming back to for English-style ales and session beers where I want hop presence without aggression.
Palisade is a Washington State hop variety that I’ve used primarily in American amber ales and English-style pale ales where I wanted something approachable — floral, earthy, slightly fruity without the sharp citrus edge of Cascade or Centennial.
Santiam is an Oregon-bred hop variety I first encountered in a homebrew shop that carried a Pacific Northwest hop selection alongside the usual Cascade and Willamette.
Olicana is a UK hop variety that caught my attention when I was building a recipe for a tropical-influenced British pale ale — I wanted something that felt genuinely British rather than importing American varieties, and Olicana delivered exactly that