Just when you thought craft brewers couldn’t add any more hops to their beer they do. Some craft brewers feel that dry hopping with 1 to 2 lbs of hops per barrel of beer is not enough and many are adding as much as 4 to 5 lbs if not more. To see what effect this has on the hop acid composition of beer and bitterness, a series of dry hopping experiments were conducted using Cascade hop pellets with assaying 5.7% alpha acids, 5.5% beta acids and 0.23% humulinones. A control beer with assaying 42 ppm iso-alpha acids was dry hopped with 1.0 lbs, 2.0 lbs, 3 lbs, 4 lbs, and 6 lbs of Cascade hop pellets for three days at 16 °C. As the below chart shows, most of the iso-alpha acids are lost with the first two pounds of hops with smaller amounts being lost with pounds 3 thru 6. Due to the high solubility of humulinones, concentrations reach 48 ppm and alpha acid concentrations reached just over 35 ppm with 6 pounds of dry hopping.

The survey of hop acreage in 2017 is completed.

Hopsteiner has recently expanded a new experimental variety from their breeding program in Yakima, Washington/USA. Seventy-five percent Cascade in origin, Experimental #09326 was bred in 2008 and is an aroma-type hop that matures mid-to-late season. Its bright, punchy aro-ma has been described as grapefruit and tropical fruit, but brew trials indicate this variety also adds a distinct berry note in ales, making it an exciting hop to watch! Experimental #09326 trials are still un-derway, so stay tuned for updates on this variety.

On Dec. 16, 2016, the US Department of Agriculture reported that US hop production for 2016 increased another 11 % from 2015, yielding nearly 87.1 million pounds of hops. Acreage increased 17 % in Oregon, 16 % in Idaho, and 16 % in Washington. Washington State produced 75 % of the hop crop in 2016, with Oregon producing about 14 % and Idaho 11 %.

Low IBU beers (20 ppm of isoalpha acids or less) that are heavily dry hopped, with 1 lb of hops per barrel (0,381 kg/hl) or more, can experience signiἀcant changes in hop acid composition.

High IBU beers (40 ppm of isoalpha acids or more) that are heavily dry hopped, with 1 lb of hops per barrel (0,381 kg/hl) or more, can experience significant changes in hop acid composition. When dry hopping high IBU beers, the leaf material of hops or hop pellets absorb and remove significant amounts of isoalpha acids and add significant amounts of low bitter humulinones and very low bitter alpha acids. ...

As in previous years, we performed a tasting of Pale Ales at the BrauBeviale 2016.

As already shown before in previous years, we would like to demonstrate how the contribution of hop oils to beer can vary from one crop year to another.