Maybe this is a newb question.. What do hops smell like before they are used in the brewing process? Can you eat them? What do they taste like? Would they make you sick? I ask because I'm sharing a IIPA with my wife and she says it's crazy how the hops turn into such fruity flavors and scents, and that got me thinking... What do they smell/taste like before the brewing process??
I've only ever smelled pellets... and I wanted to eat them... but there was only enough for the beer being brewed...
Go to a homebrew supply store, if nothing is out to smell, buy an ounce or two. They smell nice, taste terrible.
I would advise against chewing on a pellet... there is a lot of hop flavor contained in an itty bitty pellet. If you find some fresh hops, have at it (or take a small nibble of a pellet)!
It really depends on the hop as to what it smells like. Some do not have much of a smell at all while others can be described as smelling earthy, like grass, or like Marijuana (the other grass). I have had some describe it as smelling like cut hay, pine needles, and even pine resin. As to taste, it again depends. Most have a grassy bitter taste. You can eat them but why would you want to? They taste nothing like what is imparted to the beer. Some people will steep them in hot water to make a tea that is usually bitter and grassy as it has been said that it will help one to fall asleep, and I have heard that some people will put the flowers in a pillowcase for the same reason. I fell in love with hops and IPA's when I went to a friends house who was home brewing. The hop aroma was amazing. After that someone gave me a Ranger IPA to try and that same smell came flooding back and I was hooked.
The pellets are super concentrated and incredibly bitter. I taste every hop I buy before I brew it, but only a very very small piece. Different flavors are extracted from the hops depending on when its added to the cook. The early addition is your bittering agent. This addition will taste the least like the aroma. Mid to late additions will contribute more to taste and aroma of the final product. Finally, there's your dry hopped stage. Hops are added during fermentation. I've found that the result of the dry hops to the flavor is almost identical to how they appear before the brew as you were referring to.
I've made Hop Tea with Calypso Hops. I used Honey as the sweetener. They're not that different in the aroma department. Yet malts work better as a sweetener than Honey.
If you have a brewery close by, go take a tour of it if one is offered. On every tour that I've ever taken there has been an opportunity to smell a couple different hops or to taste a portion of a hop cone after tearing it apart. I'm a homebrewer, so I have the opportunity to smell and taste the chosen hops before and after brewing, but unless a single hop beer is brewed, it is too hard to say that the hops are the same smell/taste before and after brewing. I've brewed only one single-hop IPA, and I think there was some similarity before and after the beer was brewed, but it was not exactly the same.
My favorite way to experience hops is in a fresh hop ale. Take a trip up here to the NW during fresh hop season and experience it for yourself. There's nothing like it for my money.
