Cascade

Cascade is typically used as an aroma hop, however, it does also deliver a smoothly integrated bitterness too. Cascade, as most brewers know, was developed in Oregon, USA. It is a hybrid of Serebrianker and Fuggles. It was first released in 1971 and has become a hop widely used in the creation of American pale ales.

Cascade was introduced to British hop production in 2002, even though it had been on our shores for many years before that. It was developed from virus-free meristem stocks through Wye College, and it has now been growing successfully as a long, late-maturing hop here ever since.

The British Cascade hop delivers very similar flavours to its American cousin, with aromas of orange, lychee and grapefruit with floral notes, but it is slightly less intense. It is quite a hardy hop, but it can be susceptible to aphids and rabbits love it, so we have to work hard battling rabbits in the spring to keep our crop of UK Cascade high to satisfy demand!

The slightly subtler flavour of this version of the Cascade makes it the ideal hop for IPAs and American-style pale ales. Of course, the timings of adding this hop into the brew is essential to ensure you pull out all the flavours you want your beer to have, but there are a lot of possibilities with Cascade.

There are plenty of flavours that can make this hop sing in any beer. From subtle floral tastes to sudden bursts of grapefruit, this hop has it all and allows you to expand your beers in many different directions just by changing up the timings.

If you love a bit of experimenting with your brews, UK Cascade is an excellent hop to try. It provides a very stable taste range that most beer drinkers are familiar with, but you can push it a little further to add even more of an intense flavour depending on how you use it.

There are a lot of things you can do with UK Cascade, particularly if you want to develop an extremely tasty IPA or American-style pale ale. It will create beautiful fruity notes in some beers and more subtle floral notes in others. It’s a versatile hop that a lot of brewers use to create a base aroma profile for some of the best craft beers on the market.

“Our recent experience of using UK Cascade was typical of what we’ve come to expect from Brook House Hops, and proof that British hops can be just as exciting and flavourful as anything else when properly cared for. On opening the bag the aroma was amazing, the hop cones were fresh, bright green, and resinous, we had to double-check we hadn’t been sent US Cascade by mistake!“ – The Brew Shack

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