Why is Citra so much more popular than CTZ/Summit/Apollo?

In all a seriousness I recently had Troegs Scratch 78 which used 400 lbs of fresh whole cone citra hops and I didn't get any onion/garlic notes... It had a nice lemon and citrus zest aroma, and my first encounter with cat urine flavor, which worked incredibly well with the lemon citrus flavor. Cat pee is for me!!!!!!

We have 4 cats in our house. I clean the litterboxes. My first whiff of Lawson's Double Sunshine beat out the litterbox room by an order of magnitude, from the other side of the room. But the beer tasted wonderful.

Maybe I shouldn't be disposing of the cat litter so hastily...

What Jack said.

Sounds like my kind of beer! Although I prefer to dry onion with red onions.

You mean sheeple. Glad to help. Just tryin' to get the troof out there.

Mmmmm... cat pee

I mock, but citra does kick ass though in every way. I once had an all citra mild that was hoppy as hell and was so amazing I could have drank about nine growlers of it before they even lost their carbonation.

I got the resin, and the dank, and even the fruity, but I haven't noted the onion from zombie dust though. Perhaps you can send me about twelve of them so I can try again.

Must. Eat. Brains.

If you're getting onion/garlic, cat piss from any of these hops, find a new supplier. Yes, it is possible for these hops to exhibit those qualities, but from my understanding (based on opinions gathered from listening to professional brewer and hop farmer interviews on podcasts), those hops have been on the vine too long. And when they receive "oniony" or "cat pissy" hops they send them back to their hop supplier. I wish I could remember the exact brewer that said this, but it was on a Brewing Network Sunday Session. I believe he was referring to simcoe in particular. And I've heard several other professionals in the business say the same thing. They SHOULD NOT have those characteristics.

That said, certain individuals are bound to have varying tolerances for certain flavor and aroma compounds, so who's to say that what I smell/taste as dankness, fruit and citrus, that you don't perceive as garlicy, cat urine?

I feel like I just associate dank flavors with onion or garlic. It's not like the beers I'm brewing with these hops are garlic bombs, but the flavor is always there in the background when I use them in large quantities. I get the same dank, onion flavor in the background of a lot of professionally brewed beers that use these hops as well. Deviant Dale's, Gubna and Zombie Dust come to mind...

And again, I don't find these flavors offensive in the least. I love a good, dank IPA. I'm just wondering why Citra gets all the love when it's just as dank as the other hops mentioned.

Below is a post that hopfenunmaltz made in a past thread. So, if a hop is providing an onion/garlic taste it has been on the vine longer.

The issue of perceiving cat pee is dependent on how an individual perceives the compound 4MMP. So, if you are getting cat pee from a given hop (e.g., Citra, Simcoe) that is because that is how you ‘process’ 4MMP and not due to ‘old’ hops.

“Catty comes from a compound called 4MMP, men get pine out of it, women get cat piss. I always ask the wife to smell a piney beer, and she say cat pee. Simcoe and Citra are know to have it. The wet Cascade is a question mark.

Onion/garlic is from a sulfur compound that comes out more if the hops are left to mature on the vine longer. Some varieties have more of it, like Summit. Columbus can have it, but the boil should drive it off.”

Cheers!

My wife refers to Pliny as "Pine Sol". From my experience, if you do get "cat piss" from any hop, it will usually go away within a week or two

Citra and Summit are no where near the same... Citra is much more fruity while summit is dank/oniony. Citra gets the love because it appeals to more people...

I agree. My experiences with using Citra a month after brewing a beer with it, it tastes on the dank side, but the citrus opens up to me especially around 6 weeks to 2 months.
I associate Amarillo more like a bubblegum flavor. Chinook more like grapefruit.
I bought a pound of Apollo and using it for the first time this weekend and hope it gives off orange.
The only beer I tried that I know had used Apollo was a bottle from Magic hat and I hated it.

I am very excited to brew the Kern River Citra Double Ipa clone from Can you brew it. It uses just over 7 oz. of citra hops for a 6 gallon batch as well as a touch amarillo. The on air tastings of the beer didn't include any cattyness. Lots of tropical fruit (pineapple, mango, papaya). Justin compared the aroma of the beer to that of a Mai Tai !!!! Now I just need to find citra and amarillo online??!!

Amarillo is pretty much impossible to find. Luckily I still have some from the 2011 crop. Citra is easier but you're going to pay for it. Get it now while you still can.

Citra is hop aroma training wheels in my opinion. I love this hop, but have never used any other hop so easy to get that huge citrus aroma from. I buy a pound of Summit and CTZ every year, and I feel all of these hops are different.

I do get the onion and garlic from Summit, and I really do not think it is a bad thing as it is not overpowering in any way. CTZ is more earthy and spicy to me. I also get a touch of weed aroma from Apollo. These are all pretty pungent hops that give big flavor and aroma, but there is a bit more to them than Citra which some people shy away from.

I might also assume CTZ have a lot more acreage (between the three varieties), so they are not hard to find for that reason. Citra is still a pretty new hop, so there isn't nearly as much grown.

The compound in Summit and others that cause the onion and garlic will boil off if used for a bittering hop. I assume that Summit is harvested late to give the highest AA for the comercial breweries that use it for bittering.

CTZ does have the most acreage. That has been going down the last few years, as higher AA hops are coming on line. Citra is still under 1000 acres, but it has a large % increase every year.

really...i thought citra was cool right out of the gate when SN introduced it as a feature in Torpedo back in '08 or '09.

Here is what I do know...brewers have a huge library to choose from now, each hop brings something to the table. Use what you like and works for your palate. I have used Citra on a few occasions and like it...but not ready to join the black friday-like stampede to make sure it is in my freezer when released and pay several dollars an ounce.

I might need to look that up . I have roughly 2 pounds of both 2012 crop in the freezer. Sounds nice!

Because its newer

Just type in can you brew it on iTunes and the list of there podcast should come up and it's labeled kern river Citra Dipa Or I can just post it here later on.

My sentiments exactly...

I am also in this camp. Great hops, but not the only great hops.

I get people who don't like devil dancer, but I think it is kind of difficult to blame any one hop given the number of different varieties used in this beer.

Columbus is a great all around hop. I like to use it for bittering and flavor and throw in a bunch of more tropical hops at flameout. That really works well.

Long answer short. Its new

“I like to use it for bittering and flavor and throw in a bunch of more tropical hops at flameout.” Yeah, I would think that combination would result in a tasty beer.

Cheers!

Thanks man, now all I'm gonna taste is cat pee!!!