[jamminbrew]

After reading the Mosaic hops thread, I went to Freshops.com and bought 10 oz of them. (Thanks erockrph!)

Got to looking around, and found Belma hops on hopsdirect.com for $5.25 a pound. It is a new hop, and they are selling it low cost to get feed back from homebrewers about it. I picked up a pound because I couldn't pass that deal up. Anyone know anything about this one? What would it be good in? I'm thinking a Belgian ale of some kind, or maybe a pale ale? Definitely gonna use it in an IPA too.

Found some info on it... http://www.hopsdirect.com/project-belma/

[erockrph]

I have a pound sitting in my freezer as well. I haven't brewed with them yet, but I've been reading up on other brewers' experiences with them. The two consensus opinions I seem to be hearing is that a) it's not powerful enough to carry an IPA on its own and b) most reports say that it has a distinct strawberry aroma to it.

Right now I have it in the queue for a Brett Trois IPA this spring with Meridian, Mosaic and Caliente. It also sounds like it would be really nice in a Blonde or American Wheat.

[1vertical]

Quite a bit of recent info >>>>Here>>>http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=13591.15

[jamminbrew]

Excellent, thanks guys! I'll do some playing around with them, maybe give some to other members of my club, and see what they all think...

[alcaponejunior]

p.s. same reply posted on other belma thread

More on Belma hops.  I just popped the second bottle.

http://alcaponejunior.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/belma-ipa/#comment-1204

OK. It’s been a week, and I’m trying the second bottle of this one.

It’s better conditioned now, although will probably still do well with another week or so of conditioning.

Appearance is pretty murky, light brown or dark tan, with a great, lasting head and awesome lacing. Appearance could improve.

The bitterness is about right for what I had in mind. It’s not overly bitter, but is sufficiently so. I didn’t intend it to be heavily bitter.

Flavor is a bit less that what I’d find optimal for an IPA. I think it needs something besides just belma… cascade might be nice. Late hopping with belma probably isn’t the way to go.

Aroma is pretty good, but if you compare it to something like Ruination, this beer falls short.

Now I know I’m not an expert like Mitch at Stone, but I think this beer was done properly enough to draw reasonable conclusions from this tasting.

I am going to say that belma is a good bittering hop, good for milder beers that don’t require that sharp, pungent, in-your-face hop forwardness like AIPAs or DIPAs. It would probably be better suited to English styles, mildly hopped American styles, or as a general bittering hop.

I do like the aroma that the dry hops lent to this beer, but it’s again not really IPA worthy. Again, good for styles that are less hoppy than IPAs.

I am still quite pleased with my Belma hops, I just won’t use them for super cheep IPA hops. They won’t go to waste, however. I will use them as a general bittering hop, or a hop for milder beer styles. Short of doing a side-by-side with magnum or warrior, I can’t say whether they’d really be a replacement. I don’t intend to do such a comparison, BTW! These will be fine for bittering.

In the end, I’ll drink every one of my somewhat milder than expected Belma IPA. It was a good experiment, and the beer is pretty good anyway.