Infection/Quality Problems: what we should know

Would that include the hops used in Lambic brewing or are they too old for that?

 

Yes and yes.

 

I couldn't speak to the age of the hops themselves but I know I picked the beers themselves up and consumed them within a week of canning.

 

Thanks! I'm increasingly inclined to think the flavor both you and @Ranbot are picking up is a result of the brewing process as it seems to me unlikely that the source would be carried by the dry hops, especially when it is showing up across a number of different breweries and since a number of other beer styles are dry hopped without reports of that flavor.

 

Tasting butyric acid would surprise me, but smelling it not so much. The chart @LeRose linked earlier shows the the taste threshold is ~100 times higher than the smell threshold. You gotta have a really bad butyric acid issue to taste it. But, you know what you experienced better than I and tasting is heavily influenced by one's smell.

 

Old as in old when they went into the Brew kettle. The hops deteriorate in storage, and can get cheesey before they are used.

 

The lambic hops have gone through that phase, but some cheesey aroma is left. The mainly smell like paper to me.

 

By no means am I saying you are wrong but
I can't imagine they would be old. Singlecut uses a lot of the newer "boutique" hops and I definitely got those super fresh passion fruit, pineapple, orange, mango aromas that come with the territory for those hops. If they were old, I would assume those attributes would not be prevalent, no?

 

Probably diminished yes. If they add multiple Hop types, just one being off could give a problem.

So I do a search, and find old hops, or high hopping rates cause the cheese aroma. Also confused with Buteric. If NEIPAs have anything, it is high hopping rates. Here you go:
http://www.flavoractiv.com/products/isovaleric-beer-flavour-standards/

 

That sounds about right. Is isovoleric acid more detectable than butyric in ppm? Doing some research, this becomes a little more confusing because isovoleric and butyric acids are both found in cheeses (including Parmesan). There is also such a thing called isobutyric acid as well. Chemistry hurts my brain.