Making your hoppy beers hoppier with less hops

Originally posted by radarsock
I know someone in Portsmouth who brews beer he bitters with oak leaves and pine cones. Not even kidding. I never could tell the difference; I always assumed that the hops were the reason it was so mindfully medicinal in its profile. If he hadn’t told me his process for that wonderfully crafted DIPA, I probably wouldn’t have ever guessed that the bitterness in question had come from goddamn trees, of all things.
Really unique and cool.
But on the subject, I’ve brewed a delicious wheat/oat saison - one from last year - that was bittered with using dried lavender (from my garden) and dried chamomile (from my previous work site). It had only been very delicately hopped aromatically and at blame-out. Next time, however, I’ll simply take the hops out of the equation entirely. I’m giddily interested to learn what a hopless saison utilizing lavender and chamomile (as its bittering source) will taste like, what type of beer it will be.
Fascinated by floral, flowery saisons in general.

Originally posted by NobleSquirrel
Interesting. I could see that making sense. It could be dependent on the particular thiol, yeah?

Originally posted by NobleSquirrel
Also, have you had any discernible levels of diacetyl as a result? Sounds like that strain is pretty susceptible to it.

Racked this beer off of the first round of dry hops and onto the second. Am planning on bottling it on Saturday. A preliminary taste is, dare I say, awesome. Big passionfruit and guava with orange and kind of a peach thing going on. Excited to get it carbonated and conditioned. Used Munton’s Dry Ale yeast with this batch and haven’t used it before in this capacity, so the result was more in question than usual.