hop ID

[spacebandit]

Here's a good one for any hopheads out there, a mate of mine has recently retired to be a gentleman farmer in Lithuania (he's only 37 the fecker) but he found hops growing wild on his farm. So of course I have put in an order for whatever he can send me whenever he can send me them. He has no idea what variety or any background to these hops so my question is this, how do I find out?? Farmhouse ale brewing is an unbroken tradition over there going back centuries according to some stuff I have read, my mate actually drove back here from Lithuania with a boot load of different beers ans some of those bad boys were like nothing I've ever tasted in my life. Are there by any chance any Lithuanians on this board???

[spacebandit]

I suppose the best thing to do is just brew with them then so and see what happens! Maybe send a sample for analysis somewhere...

[johnrm]

...and if its a new varietal then call it SpaceBandit!

[LordEoin]

Aye, make up a light batch of beer (or a few variations in smaller batches) with just that hop and bring it to a meet for everyone to taste and throw in their tuppence.

[Tom]

I love the idea of whole new varieties of hops. Not too keen on the idea of dogs and cats at it, though. Cog? Dat?

[Will_D]

Keep an eye on this:

http://nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,2355.0.html

[spacebandit]

I like the idea of bringing it to a meet. Maybe two batches from the same mash. One with a well known hop to get a baseline and the other with the wild one. Could be pure dung of course but we shall see...