Citra Five Ways | Brewery with 5 different types of Citra

Citra is a favourite hop at Vocation and has been in most of our core recipes since 2015 when the brewery started. So when we decided to brew a HDHC (high density hop charge) beer, Citra was the obvious choice.

We managed to source 5 different formats of the hop – no mean feat given that Citra is one of the most popular hops on the market.  So this beer uses Citra prepared 5 ways - T90 Pellets, BBC Pallets, Spectrum, Incognito and Lupomax. Brewed as a collaboration project with the team at Simply hops, this is the first beer in Europe to use all 5 products together.

Each different type of Citra hop brings a new dimension to the beer, layering upon the typical characteristics of Citra. 

T90 Pellets – these are the most common pellets used for brewing. Using these is the most popular method for hot side additions and cold side additions to beer.

BBC Pellets – at Vocation we predominantly use BBC type pellets for our beers. BBC pellets have been processed at lower temperatures than T90 pellets which help preserve the volatile oils within the pellet thus contributing much more flavour and aroma per KG.

Lupomax - a new product from Barth Haas, designed to deliver optimised hop flavour. By reducing the vegetative matter, this pellet provides cleaner, more intense hop flavour without undesirable grassy, astringent flavours.

Incognito – developed over the last few year in the US, Incognito is a hot side addition where the hop is processed to remove all vegetive matter, thus providing more concentrated hop flavour in a liquid form. This produces much greater yield and a smoother and softer hop bitterness in the kettle or whirlpool.

Spectrum – this was something we worked on closely during Project X. We have trailed using this product over the last 12 months, it has been in some of our core beers but we have decided to unlock it’s true potential it is best used on heavily dry hoped beers to produce huge aromatics without excessive waste. This product is similar to the Incognito, but with the ability to use on the cold side.

The combination of these five different hopping techniques unleashes the full potential of Citra and it's multi-faceted levels of flavours. 

This Quintuple IPA is smooth with strong topical fruit aromas and flavours. Hoppy and refreshing, taste Citra at its full potential with a can or two of Citra Five Ways.