BREWING
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Hopping around Exploring the options for dry hop additions
cold side allows us to retain volatile compounds which would be lost to evaporation if added to hot wort. Quantifying the dry-hopped effect on avour is rather more complex – even nebulous. Flavour perception and the chemistry of the hop are both complicated things so understanding a process where the two collide on a scienti c level can be described by the following equation:
By Stuart Howe
Before sour beer production techniques became fashion- able, undertaking dry hopping was the key to a brewery’s ‘innovative modern craft’ marketing credentials. The prac- tice is of course as innovative and modern as any which have been employed in UK cask ale production for around 200 years; the rst record of adding hops to the cask was 1820. This article looks at the impacts of dry hopping and discusses the techniques and technologies available to undertake it successfully on a commercial scale.
Dry hopping impact on beer avour: Impact = complicated x 10 complicated
Of the breweries undertaking dry hop- ping, hardly any use physicochemical analysis on the beer produced to meas- ure its effect on the avour. The odd one or two use indicator hop compounds like linalool and myrcene but most use sensory analysis, with assessors looking for key dry hop descriptors. Components of the hop which can be extracted on the cold side impact on both the aroma and the taste of the beer being dry hopped.
W hether you call it traditional or awesome and radical, dry hopping when undertaken judiciously can turn a good beer into a thing of beauty. So let’s start on a positive note. If you think about it, dry hop- ping is a stupid term. There’s nothing any drier about the hops added on the cold side than those added to anywhere else in the brewing process. Especially if you opt to slurry them
before addition. Despite asking sev- eral learned beer historians, I’ve yet to hear a plausible explanation of the name’s origin or basis. Answers on a postcard to the Brewer and Distiller International please. The objectives of dry hopping are very simple. We want to impart an appealing fresh hop aroma to beer and improve its avour and drinkability. Adding hops or hop products on the
38 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I october 2019
i bd.org.uk
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