Herbal has it's place, and I quite like it with a more pronounce malt flavor. Old school East Coast IPAs, British bitters, and PIls benefit from herbal hops. Herbal on it's own isn't dank, but herbal plays a roll in dank.
Oh and let's not forget about the aroma of wet dog. That's a funk that I'd put in the dank tank. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31764/518445/
I just listened to a Craft Beer & Brewing podcast at around the 30:00 mark the host (Jamie Bogner) asked the brewer (Shaun Kalis, Ruse Brewing): “What is dankness for you?”. He responded: sweaty gym socks to overripe fruit to dank, sticky bud. The first time I have heard the terminology of “sweaty gym socks” but I suppose it just goes to demonstrate that “dank” is indeed an ambiguous word when it comes to beer. There is also some interesting discussion by Shaun Kalis where another brewer gave him some feedback that his beers would be improved by adding a bit of dank to their beers to “lift up” to other hop flavors of the beers. IMO this is something that Fat Head’s does with Head Hunter IPA, just some dank in the background to add flavor complexity (e.g., lift up hop flavors) to that beer. Jamie discussed the spectrum of dank in IPAs from San Diego to the Bay area to Oregon with very little dank in San Diego beer to the dankest being in Oregon brewed beers. Apparently, all of the IPAs being judged at the recent Oregon Beer Awards competition featured dank. Cheers!
Well, some folks have obviously had a wider variety of DANK beers than others and aren't hung up on the term relating it to marijauna. Grow up!! Get outta yer box. Try more beers!
Oh. OKAY. That's some diesel! Well, IMHO, if any dankness, diesel, or somehow strangely fumaric whiffs/tongue tangs to the palate overpower the base beer then...holy buckets! It seeps into an odd place. Perhaps another is in order or yet one is enuf.
Based upon what I learned in the podcast embedded in post #64 above, you should visit Oregon since dank IPAs seem to be the rule there. Cheers!
I know what the guy in the podcast said, but I haven't really found this to be the case. I drink quite a few Oregon IPA's, and in my experience, the vast majority of them have not been dank. Plenty of good ones, but most aren't dank. BTW. Ruse is renowned for their IPA's out here, and I'm personally a big fan. However, very few of them have been what I would call dank.
My favorite dank Oregon IPA is (was?) Block 15 Sticky Hands. Haven't had it in years, so not sure what it's like these days . . .
There's considerable batch variation, and B15 has been releasing more and more variants. Best OG versions are still pretty dank though.
I agree with a lot of what's described. I think of dank as cannabis-adjacent, or more accurately, the oil of cannabis. A lot of brewers call this "terpene" and it can be present in weed but also in hops.
well, there are multiple terpenes, the one most commonly associated with that "dank" flavor/aroma in both weed and hops being myrcene. (If I understand correctly). Others include limonene, linalool, pinene, humilene, beta-carophylline, terpinene, etc etc.
To me, 'dank' means herbaceous, "weedy", resinous, big hoppiness/bitterness and a chewy, lingering, mouthcoating, resiny aftertaste. The "weedier" the better. If'n it ain't "weedy", it ain't 'dank'. And after reading a lot of the posts, I'll also add terpenes to the list that helps a brew be, 'dank'.
