Hop flavour vs aroma

[smuggles]

This is something I've never really got my head around. Is there a difference between flavour and aroma?

I've always based my hop additions on the well known utilisation graph (below), using 60, 25, 10 and an 80C steep, but I'm often reading advice to only add late hops in the last 5-10 mins, and some people seem to use the words flavour and aroma fairly interchangeably.

So, does the 25 minute addition add anything that later additions don't, or are flavour and aroma both enhanced by adding the hops later? Or is there no real difference between the two?

If anyone could shed any light on this I would be very grateful.

[seymour]

I think this may be a symantic/linguistic difference between the US and UK. In the US, the terminology used by brewers and published material always uses "flavor" to mean "taste", as in the tangy impression on the taste buds of your tongue, as opposed to the aromas which you breath-in through your nose.

On these English forums, I've been surprised to read people talking about the "flavor" (or "flavour", rather) added by dry-hopping. See, that made no sense to me from an American brewing mindset. We would say hops must be boiled to release their flavor, dry-hopping only adds aroma/scent/fragrance. Generally speaking: hops boiled 60-90 minutes = bitterness, boiled 10-40 minutes = flavor, boiled <15 minutes or added dry post-boil = aroma.

What I've concluded is that you English brewers use the term "flavour" in a much broader sense, as in "the overall sensory impact or impression" which would encompass taste (tongue) and aroma (nose), but that's not what a graph like this is referring to.

I hope that makes sense, and doesn't sound like I'm insulting anyone's intelligence.

[gnutz2]

IMO flameout hops and dry hopping adds lots of flavour as well as aroma and a little bitterness (and by flavour i mean taste on my tounge).

I quite often split batches of beer at flameout, then add different flamout and steeping hops. The difference in the beers is amazing and quite remarkably the more hops i steep the more bitter it gets.

I think it's more complicated than a simple graph can make out.

[seymour]

That's true, lengthy steeping (hot, but no longer boiling) would extract a lot of flavor as well, even from an American point-of-view.

For the record, I'm not saying dry-hopping adds no flavor, I'm just saying Americans describe those as "aroma hops" and usually mean some boil time with the term "flavor hops." More than anything, I thinks it's a slightly different way of thinking about and talking about hops usage than the historical English paradigm. I could be wrong.

...I think it's more complicated than a simple graph can make out.

A big +1

[Kev888]

Flavour and aroma are different things in the UK too, and I always try to make the distinction myself. But possibly they way they get mixed up slightly reflects human perception - science has shown that we can find it very difficult to distingush between the two where they relate to things being consumed, so in a practical sense they are not necessarily very distinct from each other if you're tasting rather than (say) sniffing the beer.

That graph is a useful guide but it makes things seem pretty black and white; for me theres more vagueness between extraction and the different qualities of bitterness, flavour and aroma. Its also known that things continue after 0min, which is where 80c steeping and dry hopping are employed, even though the graph appears to be heading towards zero for aroma at 0min.

Personally for styles that want lots of aroma I'm now mostly getting that from dry-hopping, as I feel that is the best way to get as much as you need with minimal alterations to bitterness and even flavour. Because of that I tend not to really try for much aroma from the late hops so I don't add them after 15mins (or for an 80c steep) these days. My flavour additions do tend to broadly tally with the blue line though.

Also the graph shows whats efficient in terms of extracting things; its not actually the graph's fault but there is a temptation to assume thats therfore what you should aim for. Yet for styles that like good hop flavour I'm increasingly getting more of the bitterness from later additions (say 30mins onward) and reducing the whole-boil hops accordingly. Its less efficient in terms of the hops needed to achieve the bitterness, but (as the blue line indicates) you get reimbursed with more flavour for the same bitterness, and I believe its also a more rounded taste than you get with distinct/separate additions for bittering hops and flavour.

EDIT: for something like a stout though, in which I want to taste bitterness and the roasted grains rather than great hop flavour, I would still very much follow the red line.

Cheers
Kev

[seymour]

Makes sense to me. I've been coming to the same personal conclusions as your last paragraph, too.

A related question: do you think there are any benefits to boiling hops for 90 minutes (versus 60, for instance)?

[Kev888]

Thats useful to know

EDIT: I normally boil for 90mins but thats mainly because I feel that I get a better break (and after all the heating-up time it seems worth making the most of the boil). But I have to concentrate to tell any difference in bitterness/hop-utilisation over a 60-min boil and I've been unable to tell any difference at all in other flavours, so I wouldn't personally bother with 90mins for the hops alone.

Cheers
Kev

[Dr. Dextrin]

I find the idea behind that graph very useful (even if it's rather schematic) and I tend to have it in my mind whenever I plan hop additions.

In my view, whether you call it flavour, taste, aroma, or whatever isn't really the point. The point is, that if you add hops to boiling wort, you initially get quite a sharp, green, resinous, heady "aroma" (or flavour). After you've boiled them a bit, you get a taste that's less resinous, more flavoursome, that you taste further back in the mouth. Later on, the taste turns to bitterness and tends to go right to the back of the mouth.

But this is a continuum; there are no sudden transitions. You can adjust the flavour/aroma as finely as you want by timing your hop addition. If 5 minutes is too green, then try 7 minutes, etc., etc... and of course you build up layers by using additions at several times.

What the graph illustrates is exactly that, but only showing three of the flavours available. In reality you can draw any number of lines on that graph peaking at different times ... and call them whatever you want. The only real lesson is that a particular flavour peaks at a particular time.

[weiht]

I've given up trying to split hairs over what is flavour and what is aroma. Some say flavour is taste and aroma is nose, but that is just crap imo when taken literally..

[Jocky]

It's worth noting that a good chunk of a person's perception of taste actually comes from their sense of smell.

In the food and drink business 'flavour' is more of a term for the overall experience from smell and taste.

[dcq1974]

Hi Crafties
As a Flavour Chemist - the science side of flavour generally takes into consideration three different sensory sensations.

When beer or food is taken into the mouth, smell or odour is firstly perceived via the nose during normal “orthonasal” olfaction. This is followed by swallowing whereby flavour is perceived via “retronasal” olfaction. Some aroma chemicals also interact with the trigeminal nerve endings of the olfactory system to produce a sensory perception that is a mixture of odour and trigeminal stimulation (such as acetic acid). Therefore, flavour is often a complex perception that integrates three different sensory systems: odour, taste and the chemosensory receptors responsible for hot, cool, dry, irritant or pungent etc.

To demonstrate this very easily - take a jelly baby or a piece of chocolate for example and start eating/chewing but for the first 10 seconds hold your nose. Once you have chewed up the sweet well - let go of your nose and you will experience the importance of aroma on the foods and drinks we all enjoy.
You will experience quite an explosion of flavour

It's a very very interesting science

[pantsmachine]

Makes sense to me. I've been coming to the same personal conclusions as your last paragraph, too.

A related question: do you think there are any benefits to boiling hops for 90 minutes (versus 60, for instance)?

No i don't think there is any advantage to 90 vs 60 minutes. Although i must admit that i do boil for 90 minutes but that's more to do with enjoying the brewday!