Are Bittering Hops Over?

Imperial stouts use a good bettering charge. Maybe those are now juicy where you live?

Give me a balanced beer. I don’t mind some bitterness that gives a dry finish that entices me to take another sip.

 

I don’t know if it’s been brought up yet, but bittering hops are excellent at preventing boilovers. For small breweries without a lot of kettle dead space, they are a necessity (short of dumping copious amounts of fermcap in).

Long boiling seems to ingrain the bitterness in the beer more effectively. The bitterness seems to be more shelf stable, and, perhaps most importantly, it is way more efficient than adding a shitton of late/whirlpool hops.
So go ahead and go bittering free for some types of IPA. For nearly every other style...bittering hops aren’t going anywhere!

 

Hard to believe that's true when one state over we enjoy an incredible variety of different styles not equaled here since, well, forever. And that is not hyperbole.

 

I don't do sours or fruit in my ipa either.

 

Not at all. There are only a small handful of "zero IBU" beers brewed in CO and none of them are very popular. It might be 2% of the IPAs brewed in CO (by volume) right now.

I just had a session IPA and a DIPA yesterday that were both crushingly bitter.

 

Ya know, bitterness and sourness are 2 different things, right?

 

No. Drinking a fresh 2018 Bigfoot and this is bitter as sh*t.

 

Sounds great! A little more citrus and less of that "dirty hop" taste is exactly what Im after. I have luckily found a good number of IPAs that meet this criteria so Ill just chug those down.

 

I think it's more likely that the trend will lead to experimentation of bittering hops as aroma hops, and people will love them. West coast IPA's continuously getting more bitter, some murky, with all past and present IPA substyles/trends becoming widely available. As well as focusing on hop blends again (in all substyles) , but with traditional bittering hops and/or aroma hops.

 

Probably not, as the oil composition of hops classified as "bittering hops" are quite different from those classified as "flavor/aroma" or "dual use" hops. So different, in fact, that they would be unpleasant when used in large amounts as late kettle, whirlpool, or dry hop additions.

 

That is entirely subjective, I personally love the vegetal, minty smell and taste of all the "sole bittering" /high alpha dry hopped beers I've tried. I don't know how anyone could find their aroma offensive, more noble perhaps, but even Goldings seem more likely to be. FWIW, I seem to have relatively different tastes in beer than most, but that said know I am definitely not alone- it just seems a big enough market for some breweries to capitalize on , personally. I expect there to be far more diversity in the beer market for that matter. I'm going to be bittering and dry hopping my next strong with only galena and warrior.

 

Although I'd certainly be interested to hear your recipe and results, I'd be lying if I told you that I thought that sounded appetizing.

 

I wouldn't expect most too, just like the most popular "dual purpose" high alpha varieties, like Chinook and CTZ dry hopped beers. That said, I'd honestly expect more people to like Galena and Warrior than the aforementioned!

[The beer will be unique if nothing else: I've never had a beer with the hop bill, and I've never had such a strong beer with a Munich base to my knowledge. ]

 

I do enjoy a nice BIG 1,000 IBU West Coast hop-bomb IPA, but also I enjoy a softer low-bitterness NEIPA, and both of these types are still around in various incarnations.

Also let's be honest about 10 or so years ago at the height of IBU-mania some of these hop-monsters were getting ridiculously bitter (almost undrinkable) so it's nice to see the pendulum swing back towards easier drinking IPAs.

To me the real winner in this NEIPA days scenario: The beer drinker.

We're truly being spoiled for choice now, I remember when craft beer in Australia consisted of 5-6 different beers, now it's something closer to 500-600 - let's celebrate beer diversity rather than lament the loss of a few hop-monsters.