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This is a debate that seems to rage around me almost on a daily basis - at least when I am talking to customers who come from outside my store. Here is my SUBJECTIVE (but honest) opinion on the matter.
If you live far away from the Pacific Northwest, or if your homebrew supplier does not take good care with the storage and packaging of your hops, there is no doubt that you are better off with pellets. Pellet hops travel long distances better, and age better under adverse conditions. Leaf hops have more "surface area to volume" than do those dense, tight pellets and so will be more subject to oxidation, light, heat, and all the other factors which tend to make hops grow old.
The problems with pellets, though, are that they have been shredded by a mechanical machine - and thus friction-heated - during the pelletization process; this is not very good. But worse is the fact that pellets are very hard to strain out through a normal strainer, or a layer of cheesecloth, and either will clog the strainer and backlog the flow of wort, or go into your primary fermenter, and leave lots of organic matter in your fermenter for no good reason. Pellet hops to me are just more of a mess, and I like to work with the natural product whenever I can.
Whole-leaf hops - when stored properly - are much easier to filter out; not only do they catch very easily in your strainer, they allow the wort to flow through at a very fast rate, and they also filter out trub and organic proteins from your malt at the same time - they act as their own filter bed!!
I am also a purist, and a minimalist, at heart: I just enjoy the feel and look of the natural cones. They hearken me back to my primeval roots, I guess..... (Maybe I was an apothecary in my past life??)
Whole-leaf hops should also never be bagged!! This is a huge point that I cannot stress enough! Buy a good strainer, and pour your beer through it to catch your hops. Bagging hops will limit their utilization - you will not get the same amount of bitterness off them, and you will be buying bags which are disposable, or hard to clean, for no reason. Another factor against bagging is that the "millions" of swirling leaves churning through your hop boil tends to act like a purifier, "banging" little microscopic proteins together and causing them to coagulate and thus settle out - loose hops help to clear your beer and increase the clarity. Having two or three big lumbering bags bouncing around in your pot will not have nearly the same effect.
As you can see, I highly recommend whole leaf hops. My store is located just west of Portland Oregon, and I receive my hops under excellent conditions from the local growers. All of them are alpha-tested, and I package all my hops under oxygen-barrier, light-proof bags, and they are kept under constant refrigeration. I have even gone to my supplier's warehouse and seen the refrigerators where they store them prior to shipping them to me. My hops are all extremely fresh, aromatic and natural.
Now a secret: Those that own home brew stores will rarely tell you this information: pellet hops tend to be less expensive (on the wholesale market) than leaf hops, and they are incredibly less problematic (logistically) to package and to take care of than are leaf hops. Therefore, most retailers want to sell you pellets to make their lives easier.
Another point, retailers will usually tell you to bag your leaf hops when you boil them, because then they get to sell you bags every time you come into their store. This is false information - NEVER bag your leaf hops.
Email me with any questions you might have regarding hops....
