Aroma / Nosing Kits

You could do that, it is referred to as making a hop tea.

In correspondence with Stan Hieronymus (he wrote 'the' book on hops) he shared with me that hop teas do not accurately indicate hop aroma/flavor in beer. But it might be an interesting exercise for you to conduct. It is all a learning process.

If you would like to learn more about hops I would recommend to you his book:

For The Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops (Brewing Elements)

Cheers!

 

Well, beer appreciation is a journey.

Keep on learning!

 

That experiment should be interesting. I used to homebrew but I never took the time to do any comparison sniffing of the various hop or grain varieties that I had on hand.

Make teas with the hops for a taste comparison too, or drop a pellet or two into a light-tasting beer as another experiment. You can eat the grains without cooking them, but I don't know if there is anything beer-like to learn from that.

Edit: It looks like @JackHorzempa has already filled you in on methodology for your experiment.

 

In the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour they have barrels of different types of hops you can pick up in handfuls and stuff your face into them. It's glorious!

 

I did something similar while taking a tour of the Sierra Nevada Mills River brewery. The took you into the cold room where they had several HUGE bins of whole hops of various varieties (e.g., Cascade, Centennial, etc.) and they let you take handfuls out and do the rubbing exercise (i.e., you vigorously rub the cones to create friction/heat to release the essential oils and the sniff). I did this for a number of varieties and I had fun but there is a downside, my hands were sticky as hell and even after repeated washing in the men's room they were still tacky. They should offer a solvent (or some other heavy duty cleaning product) to get that stuff off.

Cheers!

 

Haha, nice! It's like picking up pine branches in the fall!