Blind taste any beer with the expectation to decide the hop aroma/flavor contribution and you will pick out citrus just about every time. I get citrus from Saaz. It's not like Citra or Galaxy, but it's there. When you know what ingredients you're using you will often find what you expect, but even then I get citrus notes from noble hops like Saaz and Tettnanger all the time.
Interesting, I'll take your word on that. TBH I haven't used saaz in my homebrew in a long time, but its still in my memory as spicy, shiny-sharp, herbal taste, though i did not break it down deeply.
Ugh. Makes you wonder how many pints of other stuff the tasters consumed prior to the xBmt. Palate fatigue, wishful thinking, stupidity, terroir, or a combo of some or all of these.
For a recent competition at my club, we all brewed a Czech dark. We all used Czech Saaz. Zero of the entries tastes like citrus or tropical fruit. Recipes and ingredient sources varied. Zero examples tasted like citrus or tropical fruit. Zero. No one said anything about these characteristics during the BOS-style tasting.
my "lol", wasnt a total condemnation necessarily, since it is 2022 and my perception is that a lot of european regions actually have a belief that the US is leading the way and are very into US style hops, i thought maybe it was how they are growing hops in the saaz region or it is a weird sourcing.
but yeah, even that is unlikely since people expect saaz to be... saaz. noble.
i just wonder how those results could have come about. funny.
and yes, i do still keep brulosophy on my shortlist of brewing bookmarks since i just don't know too many sites that update super frequently. its popcorn.