The Great Zombie Dust Brew-Off

There is this hop phenomenon that is currently occurring in craft beer.  There have been several new varieties of hops developed in the last 5 years that are being selected for their intense tropical fruit aromas and high alpha acids.  Among these varieties are the likes of:

• Mosaic

• Nelson Sauvin

• Calypso 

• Citra

The one that has really taken off the most from what I have seen is the Citra.  It’s name says it all, and that’s exactly what the hop heads are looking for, a big citrus fruity aroma to balance out the bitterness of the big hoppy pale ales, IPAs, IIPAs, IIIPAs, Rye IPAs, Black IPAs, Belgian IPAs. You name it, if it’s hop forward, brewers are piling in the Citra hops by the truck load and the masses are loving it.

One of the newest beers on the scene that features the Citra hop alone as a single hop beer is Three Floyd’s Brewing Company’s American Pale Ale entitled Zombie Dust.  Zombie Dust, with its clever name, and amazing zombie cartoon packaging packs a wallop with 60 IBUs and 6.4% ABV with aroma that jumps out of the glass and slaps you with tropical hoppy goodness.  Before even tasting this beer you are in belief that it is one of the best beers ever, and it is.  This beer garners a perfect 100 rating on RateBeer.com, 4.5 caps on Untappd, and a perfect 100 on BeerAdvocate.com.  Making it basically the best pale ale on the planet, which we have come to expect from Three Floyd’s reputation, being voted best brewery in the world 3 times.

So, obviously this is a beer that we all would love to drink right?  Well, we can’t,  because they literally cannot make enough of the stuff to go around.   We must brew our own!  And this is what lead us to the "Zombie Dust brew-off".  There are a couple different recipes available on the home brewing forums but we basically all settled on the same grain bill and hop schedule:

• 81% 2-row Pale Malt
• .75oz Citra First Wort Hop
• 7.5% Munich 10L
• 3.5% each of Melanoiden, Dextrine, and Crystal 60L
• 1.25oz Citra @ 15, 10, 5 & 1 mins left in the boil
• 3oz Citra Dry Hop

Varying yeasts were used from S-04 English Ale, to London Ale 3, and one other that escapes my memory. 4 entries were entered in this bi-monthly brewing competition, to the winner goes the Golden Keg. The beers were rated by ten people blindly, grading them on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being an exact clone, and 1 being brew-worthy of a golden toilet, not a golden keg.

Results

1. Bud Molyneax (75 pts of 100)
2. John Page (72 pts)
3. Richard Drawdy (53 pts)
4. Derek Soukup (52 pts)

The consensus was that Bud’s batch was the closest to the real example for its great citrusy aroma and smooth hoppy flavor that's not too bitter, similar to how the commercial example presents itself.  A conclusion was drawn as to why Bud won and John came in second by such a large margin of victory:

John and Bud both used Pellet hops, while Derek and myself used whole cone hops.  We all got our hops from Taylor’s Pantry in Sioux Falls, and they were all Hop Union packages.  I had always read about the effects of age on hops and shelf stability is greater in hops that are pelletized as opposed to being in whole cone form.  Hop Union packages their hops in nitrogen flushed opaque packages and Taylor’s Pantry stores their hops in the cold box for optimal preserving, however the pellet hops definitely proved themselves to be superior in this brew with having the more distinct Citra aroma that everyone was looking for in this brew.

Now there are several other factors that could have played into this which are out of our control.  Hops are an agricultural product and consistency is impossible, so all I can do is assume that the top quality and similar quality hops were put into those packages which were similar in characteristics on the day they were packaged, but one was pelletized and one was left in its whole leaf form and the pellets win in the shelf stability contest.

In conclusion I plan to be purchasing pellet hops in the future and dealing with their down falls of ease of use in the kettle if I am unaware of their quality or freshness, since pellets will most likely be more shelf stable and yield a better product.

Whew, now on to brewing this one again with some fresh 2013 hops since these were undoubtedly 2012 crop. Absolutely amazing recipe and I recommend anyone that likes hoppy pale ales to give it a try. You may not brew Zombie Dust but you will end up making something delicious with some similarities to the real Zombie Dust.

Cheers - Rich