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Aussie Hops Series: Topaz - Presented By HPA
2 Playsin 5 hours
“The purpose of Topaz was really a bittering hop. And then as that craft flavour grew and hit mainstream, it really evolved from simply being a start-of-boil, hot-side hop to something that was used at end of boil to something that's now used in the dry hop as well.”
In partnership with HPA, Australia's leading hop grower, we've created a series of podcast episodes – an Aussie Hop Series – looking closely at some of the country's most recognised and impactful hop varieties.
Over the course of the series, we're speaking with leading brewers from across Australia and abroad, as well as experts from HPA, discussing their experience with these iconic hops, what they've learned along the way, as well as some technical tips and tricks to maximise the impact of these hops in their beers.
In the fourth episode in the series, we chatted to Jesse James Searls, from Young Henrys, and Michael Capaldo from HPA, about Topaz. The pair discuss the variety's evolution from being predominantly a bittering hop when it was first commercialised in 1997 to one used for dry-hopping, its tropical character, biotransformation and more.
For more information on HPA and their range of hops, visit hops.com.au.
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Introduction to Australian Hops
00:00:06
Speaker
G'day guys, it's Craig here from the Crafty Pint and welcome back to our series on Aussie hops presented by HPA. ah Throughout this series we'll be talking to a bunch of Australia's very best brewers talking about Australia's favourite hops.
00:00:20
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Jesse Searles, head brewer at Young Henry's and also Michael MC c Capaldo ah from HPA. Jesse, how you doing mate? I'm good mate, how you going?
00:00:32
Speaker
Good. Thanks for joining me. No worries.
The Evolution of Topaz Hop
00:00:34
Speaker
My pleasure. It's always ah good to talk about Aussie hops and beer in general. Fantastic. And MC, how are we today? i'm great. um Jesse, stoked that you like to talk about Aussie hops and beer all the time. And yeah, that's good.
00:00:49
Speaker
That's all we tend to talk about most of the time, isn't it? That's right. That's right. Love it. Well, that Michael, I might start with you, mate. We're talking today about Topaz. For those new to the world of hops or maybe very familiar with that hop, tell us more about it. What's the background? What's the history of this one?
00:01:07
Speaker
this is um This is an interesting hop. It's a really cool hop. It's been in our breeding. Sorry, it was commercialized in 1997, believe it or not, this hop. So it's been around better around for that long, but in such a small amount.
00:01:20
Speaker
And its history, it's almost in 1997, if I remember where craft brewing was back in a day, let's even make way from the term craft beer and towards, you know, flavoursome beers and dry hopping beers.
00:01:35
Speaker
No one was really dry hopping back then. So the purpose of Topaz was really a bittering hop. And then as that craft flavour grew and hit mainstream,
00:01:47
Speaker
um it really evolved from being simply a start of boil, hot side hop to something that was used at end of boil to something that's now used in the dry hop as well. So it's it's really experienced ah ah quite an evolution is ah as a hop varietal.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic. And I guess the the growth of it, like what beers are you seeing the
Flavor Profiles and Usage of Topaz
00:02:09
Speaker
Topaz using? what are the flavour profiles that you're seeing brewers use the hop for, Michael? Well, I'll let Jesse speak to the beers because we're on here with the Young Henry's podcast and he can speak to the the beers that Young Henry's are brewing with it. But um from my perspective as as representing hop farm, when we do raw sensory on it and then we do beer sensory on it, we we get some interesting things. We get grapefruits on it We get lychees and that sort of peachy tropical flavour.
00:02:36
Speaker
um I think the thing I like about it is it's the one Aussie hop that I think I get a little bit of pine out of as well and that sort of woody tobacco. and I really like that that character in it as well. um Not so salesy. Do you find that sort of character is that just my funny nose?
00:02:52
Speaker
ah Look, I've never really thought of it in a tobacco sense, but certainly that like earthy complexity behind the forefront of citrus, I definitely know what you mean. And um yeah, I think it's just another – aspect of Topaz that makes it incredibly like versatile and and um really attractive hop to use.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, nice. And Jesse, tell me in your experience, so it may it may have been with Young Henry's, it may have been earlier in your beer journey as well. When did you first kind of come across Topaz and what was that experience like?
00:03:25
Speaker
Well, um I'm actually coming up on 10 years at Young Henry's and I don't have any previous beer experience to that, so I can't really, I certainly never used it in my two or three shocking home brewers that I did before I have became an actual brewer. But um my my first experience with it obviously has been working at Young Henry's. And, you know, as far as I understand, we we actually held considerable contracts of it, I think, from 2014 onwards. And we were we were using it before that, but, you know, more in a spot sense. But um look, ah back to what Michael said about it being,
00:04:01
Speaker
um predominantly historically used as a bittering hop. Certainly that's how it it began with us. It's such a high alpha um hop that and at you know at a great price point that it certainly was, that was how we utilized it at the start. It still is the the first wort addition in all of our core range beers.
00:04:20
Speaker
um So we still use it very much hot side, but probably in the last three to four years have been experimenting more that um you know later in the whirlpool and then definitely in in a lot of our limiteds and now in one of our core range products, um it's a ah real main player in the dry hop.
Topaz in Young Henry's Beers
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. and And you mentioned, so using it across your core range beers, can you, for those that maybe aren't as familiar with young Henry's core range, like, can you give me the the scope of what, what different styles does that include? What beers are are they in?
00:04:52
Speaker
Sure. So, so um obviously anyone that is familiar with us probably knows about Newtowner. It's our flagship product. It's about, you know, um over 50% of our business and, and a real ah household name in the craft section sector of Australia.
00:05:07
Speaker
um It's an Australian pale ale. It's, Topaz is used um in that beer as as the beer ring hop. And then ah going across the portfolio, we have natural lager, IPA, hazy pale ale, steyer, and motorcycle oil rounds out our beer offerings in our core range.
00:05:25
Speaker
um We have a few other ah new lines as well, but um certainly in those historical, ah like real big players in our core range that have been around for you know a long time Topaz is used in all of them. So, yeah, I think, again, it really was um chosen back then in those in those sort of formulation of those recipes. And as those recipes have developed, um mainly to to be a ah high alpha bittering component where coupled with its fairly, um, fairly high cohumulin content, you know, we can use it in, in smaller quantities to give a really nice rounded structured business. Um, you know, we don't pump too much of it in there, you know, resulting in a harsher flavor. And, um, I think we've really dialed in how to use it on the hot side. And and now, yeah, as I said before, the the last couple years have really been about, um, learning it in a dry hop sense, which, uh, Two years ago, we brought in a ah new core range beer called Cold XPA, um which is an XPA, and I really wanted to show showcase Topaz in that beer.
00:06:32
Speaker
So it it actually, um it's in the dry hop about 30%, which it was funny when I was sort of coming up with a recipe for that beer. the The other dry hop, the other hop variety in that dry hop is Galaxy, of course.
00:06:47
Speaker
um But I kind of knew that Topaz would, ah it would outcompete the Galaxy in terms of its of its volume in the dry hop. so it was really amazing to see how much it did though, because I still think in that beer, even at 30% versus 70%, it really um comes to the forefront over Galaxy, which I don't know if it's something about how those two interplay, but it definitely communicates more than get the Galaxy in that dry hop, which was a really cool thing to,
00:07:20
Speaker
to come to the conclusion of and, you know, through the R&D process and all that. um And that's sort of something that we've taken that learnings into other limited beers and and sort of knowing that we can use Topaz in ah in a, like in a restrained way that it really contributes a lot more than the, you know, the sum of its parts.
00:07:40
Speaker
you' You've mentioned, Jesse, a few things like around, you know, it's ah at a really great price point and you can use it in different ways where you use a small amount to get a big impact. And is that sort of one of the the key points of difference to other hops on the market?
Potential and Techniques for Using Topaz
00:07:55
Speaker
You're getting a lot of, I guess, bang for your buck with Topaz or how else do you see the real strengths of this hop?
00:08:01
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely elements of that. um But at the end of the day for me, like, it's It's something that I really trust, um HotSide, and that, again, like it's it's really proved that it's ah much more versatile and less ah it's it's's got a real dynamic and flexible um nature to itself.
00:08:24
Speaker
um So I think definitely, yeah, there there is a commercial attraction there that it's it is like yeah high offer, fairly low cost, but I think it brings a ah different um a different variety of of flavors and aromas to the dry hop compared to other um you know more popular Australian hops. So, Grapaldo, you touched on that. But um definitely, that I get a real much more complexity and it's sort of less like it has these high
00:08:55
Speaker
touchstones of flavor and aroma and it it has a ah more broader spectrum of things that that can contribute to finished beer. Um, but yeah, I mean, I mean, it's, it's a really great value hop. Um,
00:09:07
Speaker
Again, like we we use it in in pretty um small amounts in hot side and to a great effect. But yeah, um just it's just ah a real point of difference for me. And I don't see it used in a lot of other beers I see on the market. And I really feel like it's ah an underutilized hop and it's sort of ah bit misunderstood. And it's it's sort of got a lot more strings to its bow than just as a bittering hop.
00:09:31
Speaker
And, mate, let's talk brewing tips and tricks and techniques and so on for a moment. um You say you use it use topaz both on the hot side very effectively but also through dry hop and so on.
00:09:43
Speaker
Are there any kind of things you've learned over your nearly 10 years with young Henrys on just what how to get the most out of that hop? Yeah, I mean – um I think the adage like less is more sometimes can really help, especially on Hotside.
00:09:59
Speaker
And when you're going through that sort of R&D process and and scaling up from you know your pilot system to commercial size batches, sometimes things don't translate in a linear fashion. so keeping that in mind that you you kind of want to err on the side of caution with bitterness um is really important. And and we've learned the hard way in the past.
00:10:20
Speaker
um But, you know, we've we've messed around with the Topaz a lot in dry hopping in the early stages of fermentation. So we we employ sort of a a trick that um if we want to help clarify beers, we'll dry hop on zero day, um as in, you know, we've knocked out the the last of the wortons of fermenter and before fermentation's even kicked off, we we'll literally do a small charge of of some hops to help. um I learn all this actually in in the States that,
00:10:52
Speaker
CBC a few years ago, but they've done a bunch of research over there and into, into, haze, like ah effect on haze and how early or late you're dry hopping. And one of the big findings of that was, um, uh, I think it was, her name's Laura. Uh, I can't remember her last name, but she works for Omega yeast. But one of the big findings was that dry hopping early and especially day zero, um it kind of acts as like a, this turbocharged, you know, glucosidase, which contributes to biotransformation and And sort of just churns through all those haze positive molecules.
00:11:25
Speaker
And we've used Topaz in that in that way really, really effectively. So we've dry hopped a small charge, you know, maybe a gram a liter into the fermenter on day zero and or day one, whatever you call it.
00:11:37
Speaker
and I'm seeing a really great reduction in haze further down the line. um We've used it sort of day four. We've used it when we typically dry hop it at the end of fermentation, when we're VDK negative.
00:11:49
Speaker
We've used it as a tool in trying to you know get hop creep out of the way. um it just seems to be a really active hop wherever you
Pairing and Popularity of Topaz
00:11:57
Speaker
put it. Like you can apply that to it being hot side. You can apply that to it being dry hopped in the dry hop. It seems to just really bring a lot to the table.
00:12:06
Speaker
And, you know, I don't pretend to understand the like full-blown molecular science of how that's happening with topaz, but it really does seem to to have that um expression. Sounds like you you understand it a hell of a lot better than i do,
00:12:21
Speaker
Mate, let's talk kind of pairings. you you You said you've used topaz across such a ah broad range of styles of beer and so on. um What other hops do you find play really nicely with topaz?
00:12:33
Speaker
um I was actually looking back through some of the recipes that we've used it um in recently because I've got ah another thing coming up that I want use it in. and One thing I found and I remembered from this beer was that we used it in ah um in like a majority mosaic dry hop. I get this thing from mosaic. I'm not sure if everyone else does. like Obviously, mosaic is a really – it's a rock star hop. like Everyone – all the big boys use it. it's It's really part of that trilogy, you know, Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe.
00:13:02
Speaker
um but but I get this thing from a, and don't get me wrong, I love mosaic, but I get this slight sort of almost butyric note sometimes from it, especially when that that beer that it's in is sort of getting a little long in the tooth, but it throws these like, I don't know, overripe mango. Like it's a little bit like sickly, but in a kind of nice way.
00:13:25
Speaker
And I feel like where there's been two beers where we've used um topaz as sort of like a, not the star player, but a supporting cast and with the star player being Mosaic. And it's really rounded that out. I feel that Topaz really sort of contributed this other layer of complexity and and depth that sort of rounded that um harshness of that the almost sort of like overripe mango vibe that the that Mosaic can throw.
00:13:52
Speaker
um So I think that that was one really cool thing that we've sort of discovered just through chance of pairing those two hops together. um we've We've used it in ah in a New Zealand like focus dry ah dry hopped um IPA before, which was really cool. It seemed to have this really nice harmony with those sort of, um i mean, New Zealand hops, similar you know, Antipodean, New World varieties, like much more tropical fruit forward. But, you know, it worked really well in that beer. um
00:14:26
Speaker
ah You know, again, i think it's sort of really you got to try, got to experiment with what works for you and on your equipment and your brewery. But certainly and we've we've had a lot of success with using it with Mosaic to really contribute and equal something greater than the sum of its parts.
00:14:43
Speaker
That's fantastic. MC Topaz, you mentioned earlier on, it's been ah kind of a core component of the HPA stable since the 90s. It's been such a longstanding hop varietal and probably outlasting quite a few others on the market in that time. Why why do you think it's been um such a consistent performance, such a stayer?
00:15:03
Speaker
It's interesting. I think it's had a few different life cycles. So we talked about the bitterness component and and that lifestyle, and now we talked about the fact that it's getting used more and more in in dry hop or or whirlpool, um yeah not just in Australia, but um overseas as well. In the US, we're seeing an uptick in the Aussie XPA style, which for them is ah apparently they're learning a style of us for once, which is pretty awesome. and And Topaz is actually, we've had a nice little uptick over there um from Topaz going to those style of beers as well. So I think brewers are rediscovering it um and and using it for its merits. so
00:15:40
Speaker
it's It's here to stay um and it it'll be interesting to see how it evolves um more and more on the cold side. It's a versatile performer like like most Australian hops, I would say. But thank you so much, guys. Jesse, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
00:15:56
Speaker
you, mate. Nice. NMC, thanks for joining us. And this has been another episode of our Aussie Hops series presented by HPA. If you want to find out more info about our great Australian hops and our hop growing regions, head to hops.com.au.
00:16:13
Speaker
Thanks.