Hydra - Switching Your NEIPA Recipe
How should I switch or adjust my hazy/NEIPA recipe to use Hydra?
Many brewers have found that Hydra offers an overall excellent flavour profile and performance in hazy IPAs. They have noted stronger terpene biotransformation than conventional strains like Vermont or Foggy London Ale, yielding strong citrus and mango character. Hydra also attenuates lower than Vermont and Foggy, resulting in "juicier" beers.
Since Hydra has lower attenuation it is important to make recipe adjustments if the beer you are making has specific ABV targets or tolerances. In general, we find that Hydra attenuates about 5% lower than Foggy London Ale and about 10% lower than Vermont Ale. You can compensate for this difference by either mashing for longer time, or by replacing some of the malt in your recipe with dextrose or sucrose.
We really like the low attenuation of Hydra in low-alcohol hoppy beers, where it helps counteract the bite and astringency of very high hopping rates.