IBU ratings

OP, here's an article that might help:

International Bitterness Units (IBU)

A few excerpts:

 

Between harvests of a hop strain, the AA% doesn’t fluctuate that wildly to completely re-formulate a recipe based off cost. You’re right, people won’t tell a difference of a few IBUs, but as @hopfenunmaltz said, it’s all about getting that consistency locked down and not taking any chances, especially if you’re an already reputable brewery.

 

You guys are correct but I'm not talking about tweaking a recipe, rather the economics of running a small business where the guy who signs the front of paychecks has to watch everything.

 

Then they can go for extracts.

 

I’m also guessing the push to hazy, soft mouthfeel, low bitter kinda IPAS make the IBU irrelevant. NEIPAS have really changed the marketing techniques, and promoting bitter isn’t a plus. 5 years ago guys were looking for 100 ibu beers, laboratory numbers and actual perceived bitterness are two separate things.

 

Additional ingredients of any sort mean additional costs. What they can do and what they can afford to do are two separate things entirely.

 

From every brewer I have ever talked with about hops, malt, and brewing with, I have to disagree wholeheartedly. Repeatability is paramount in this industry.

 

Really? Not so much with the new wave of craft brewers.

 

CO2 hop extracts are not expensive and are shelf stable. Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River says he uses them for early kettle additions, as he gets more product (wort) out of the kettle due to less absorption by the hops. A cost savings in his thinking.

I have been to Yakima and toured YCH's CO2 extract facility. They package in various sized containers, up to 55 gallon drums. A large stack of those had shipping labels for delivery to Heineken. They have a staff of accountants I think.

 

It's a thing on website: the less time you've spent here, the dumber you are for asking questions. This site is filled with entitled a-holes, it's great!

 

My perspective is of one who spent an entire career advising small businesses during which I became acutely aware of the common problems they face irrespective of the type business in which they were engaged.

Brewing beer is a manufacturing process using fungible raw materials that will vary somewhat from year to year and region by region. It seems to me the repeatability competent brewers seek is found through brewing techniques rather than a reliance on recipes.

 

While the material cost may be minimal, even amounting to pocket change, as a business owner I have to look at the total cost to me of using that material. Shipping, risk of loss insurance during transit, actual labor needed just to handle and store the material when it arrives, anything requiring special handling (contents under pressure, etc.) also bumps up the cost of insurance on my place and so forth.

I think this discussion on IBU numbers deserved a new thread and I apologize to the OP for wandering away from the original question.

 

I've had beers rated at 45 IBU that tasted more bitter to me than others rated at 60 or higher. I wonder just how relevant IBU numbers are to my fellow BA members when making a purchase decision. Or, for that matter, do we really care if the numbers vary a bit from batch to batch so long as the overall quality standard remains high.

 

ever since knowing that IBUs on stouts are higher than certain IPAs, i've ignored IBUs totally knowing it bears little significance on bitterness.

If I'm deciding on a hop aroma beer vs hop bitterness vs hop flavour beer, I'll just hop on to untappd or just read the label to visualise the taste profile of the beer.

 

The bitterness to gravity ratio is much more indicative, though it still doesn't tell the whole tale. Water chemistry and other things (like certain grains or additives) also play their role.

 

And welcome to BA.

 

I am not a fan of bitter beers, so I pay some attention to IBU. I'm a stout fan and if I have a choice between two new-to-me stouts to try, IBU might enter into it. That said, I've had 30 IBU beers that seemed extremely bitter, and 70 IBU beers that I didn't find very bitter at all - so I don't put a lot of credence in IBU.

 

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