Are Bittering Hops Over?

I much prefer a more citrusy IPA versus a super-hoppy one. Voodoo Ranger from New Belgium comes to mind as an IPA style beer that tastes as such. There are others. Lets face it, bitterness is not most people favorite "trait" regarding flavors so its not surprising that a lot of folks are growing tired of the excessive hoppiness that some of these beers exhibit.

Im fine with whatever happens. What I would like to see is less of these gimmicky beers with goofy flavors added and all that. Someone showed me a cucumber stout the other day. I was like.... what the !@#$ is that all about?

 

I appreciate you adding your perspective here.

 

I’m becoming skeptical...

 

Snoochie Boochies?

 

Betteridge's law of headlines applies yet again!

 

Palate fatigue! It Is one of the reasons I was drawn to NEIPA's In the beginning. However, It's not just bitterness that drives me towards a different brew style.

I also suffer palate fatigue from having the same hop flavors (even very mildly bittered won't fix). I'm currently staying away from the orange/mango/tangerine flavors for a little while. I've had so many of them lately, I'm losing the ability to taste them, let alone enjoy the aftertaste.

Me personally, I'm glad there are so many IPA styles, otherwise I have no clue where I'd go. Anywhere but sours. Thing is, I said the same thing about IPA's last year.

 

Are bittering hops over? Certainly not, but I think the number of 100 Megaton Hop Nukes are dwindling for sure.

In my area at least, there is definitely a shift away from high IBU beers toward low-moderate IBU beers and an increase in juicy, aromatic IPA's.

 

Bingo.

 

Let's be honest, NEIPAs--most of them anyway--still use bittering hops. There is a difference between working with hopping and fermentation techniques that yield a low amount of perceived bitterness in the end product and completely skipping the process of adding hops to the boil.

As far as I'm aware, even most of the big-time NEIPA brewers are still bittering their beers because without some kind of bittering agent, the end product is a sickly sweet mess.

Personally, I don't even think most NEIPAs taste terribly sweet. You can have lots of fruit characteristics without being overtly sweet.

 

Stay Lit

 

The question that always comes to mind for me in these conversations is "what defines a NE IPA?". Its a fairly broad spectrum of what an NE IPA is and isn't. The obvious is the look, hazy. Low perceived bitterness is certainly a hallmark but not a requirement. Lots of dry hopping, hoppy smell, some level of "juiciness", mouthfeel, etc..

Maybe its not what is a NE IPA but what is a good NE IPA. That's subjective of course but the key differentiator to me is the dry hopping. Maybe someone who is a brewer can comment but I feel like the taste of the dry hopping overwhelms the perceived bitterness in a really good NE IPA. Its not that its not there but that it takes a back seat. As an IPA ages the dry hopping dissipates a bit and the bitterness comes more to the forefront. The massive dry hopping in beers like Tree House is hard and expensive to replicate. This seems to lead brewers to reducing the bitterness so the dry hopping seems more prevalent. It also leads to longer shelf life because the taste in a less bitter beer doesn't change as much. This leads to the continual conversation that NE IPA's aren't nuanced and are a one and done beer.

 

I hope so... hops have such a wide diversity of terpenoids why would we focus on using them to make beer overly bitter.......

 

Back in the day all the cool kids drank the most bitter hop bombs. I do love them too and get the occasional Hopsickle to satisfy that urge. But I am with you that pulling as many hop flavors from the abundance of them in our friend the hop cone makes a very delicious beer.

 

Dry hopping is the optimum way to maximize hop aroma. I have heavily dry hopped beers but also used quite a bit of bittering hops (e.g., my version of a Pliny the Elder beer). For my palate this 'extra' dry hopping does not mitigate the bitterness aspect. In other words this beer had a significant taste of bitter and it had a very strong hop aroma.

Your observation is accurate in that with aging the hop aroma does fade and the resulting beer will indeed have a variation in the balance of hop flavor/aroma. I personally would not describe an aged hoppy beer as having an increased perceived bitterness but that is just my personal palate.

Cheers!

 

Dry hopping adds to actual (as in IBUs) AND perceived bitterness, so I would tend to disagree with you about this. However, dry hopping with very tropical fruit forward hops can also lead to a perceived sweetness, so you may be on to something there.

Not really sure what you are saying here, but the aroma contribution of dry hops can and does fall off rather quickly, so this would actually lead to a decreased shelf life, at least in reference to the beer being consistent with what left the brewery.

Whether the beer is more or less bitter would be a separate issue, as bitterness is a taste and not an aroma, and the perceived sweetness of the beer gained via the dry hopping would not fall off at a commensurate rate as compared to the aroma.

 

Perhaps I misunderstand things. I thought dry hopping adds both aroma and hop flavor. The bitterness addition is minimized vs hops added during the boil. The aroma and hop flavor added by dry hopping falls off over time. The sweetness or fruitiness is dependent on the type of hop added.

My point with the increased shelf life was that a higher perceived bitterness would affect the other tastes within the IPA or perhaps the other way around; the sweetness and hoppy flavor reduce the perceived bitterness. Either way if you start off with a lower bitterness to start with it allows you to not have to add as much dry hops. Maybe its not so much shelf life as it is the overall reduction in adding hops. Its much more expensive to have a balanced NE IPA.

 

boil additions are not a thing of the past and I certainly still use them. I believe much of the "boil addition " beers came about because of the last 10 15 years of hop introduction.

before you had cascade, chinook, Columbus, centennial, magnum and a few others for pales/ipas. then came the simcos, citras, and all the rest of the "aroma" hop s with high biitering values. Then hop bursting, whirlpooling fermentation hopa additions and dry hopping all with massive amounts over the old west coast methods.

Given that some breweries will go away from boil additions and some will do both.
buy what you like.

 

It does, but it also adds bitterness. As far as the aroma and flavor added by dry hopping goes, how are you differentiating that from the aroma and flavor added by whirlpool additions or even kettle additions?

Hop bitterness and aroma, though not completely unrelated, don't have a lot to do with each other. Hop bitterness and flavor are more related, but, again how do you determine where your hop flavor is coming from? Your kettle, whirlpool, or dry hop?

 

I do mention the bitterness addition in the next sentence, minimized vs during the boil. That being said I am focusing too much on a singular hopping method or perhaps focusing on methods of brewing in general rather than the flavors and asking questions on how they contribute to the tastes in question.

 

I think that's a good assessment of why we seem to be at cross purposes.