What is the tastiest Noble Hop

[David Edge]

Does anyone know to what extent hop aromatics track alpha acid content?

[David Edge]

Ah, that's not quite what I was getting at. Yes, I suspect that between varieties high alpha is less aromatic than low alpha. However I meant for a given variety does aroma track alpha. I think I read something over the weekend that suggested it did go up and down with the season's alpha, but it wasn't an authoritative enough source for me to have made a note.

It's an odd 'un. People get terribly excited about IBU calcs yet advice on aroma hopping is rather thin on the ground. Commercial practice is 14g/firkin with the odd person going to 28g.

[David Edge]

Oh, it's not as simple as that! Yes, the aromatics may not be proportional to the harvest, but also do they stand up to storage better or worse that alpha acid and other strains. A hop that was stonking in January might be naff in August?

As I've said before, in my trial Fuggles came out best and Saaz worst. I have this theory that the freshest hop - within the limits of the style you're after - will always win.

But let's not count angels on the head of a pin - remember you drink many cracking beers down the pub dry hopped with 14g/firkin regardless of any numbers.

For once I'll agree with my colonial cousins - RDWAHAH!

[BigEd]

Spalter is a wonderful hop and has become my favorite over the last few years for Oktoberfest style lagers as well as altbier. For a light colored lager I favor a blend of Saaz and one of the Hallertau hops. Saaz alone is of course magnificent in the Czech style pils but for more pedestrian Continental lagers I again like a blend. Saaz works surprisingly well as a lager bittering hop combined with Spalter or Hallertau for flavor/aroma. I brewed a Vienna last year with Saaz for bittering followed by Spalter and I really enjoyed the results.

[David Edge]

Are those flavours and aromatics locked in once the beer is brewed only to improve with maturation or will the best beers always be brewed within x number of weeks of the harvest ? (not that there's anything anyone can do about it) and only be good within a certain window.

You can do something about it - buy your hops from a reputable merchant as soon as they appear in the shops. That does mean you have to take a view of your 'core' hops and stick to them rather than following the whims of recipe writers. I know of nobody who advocates using old hops save the lambic brewers. On the commercial side consistency is more important than absolute taste and Greens of Luton (and probably others) used to use 25% new hops and 75% last years in the first three months after the harvest, 50:50 in the next and so on. That was perhaps before cold storage became common, nowadays I suspect it matters less as the hops are kept cold up to the moment they go in the copper.

As for locking into beer and maturing to improve, that depends on what else is going on in the beer. Low grav beers are susceptible to staling and for the beers I brew in my brewery milds are looking tired in two months and bitters in four. On the other hand 1064 IPAs resist staling better and as I use Victorian hopping rates (maybe 350g per 25l) you need to wait until the bitterness has died back to reveal the flavourful hop components in their full glory and complexity - by which time other flavours will have developed too.

I tasted a high hop IPA at GBBF and it was from the 'dumb blonde' school - yes loads of hops, but no maturity, I hope there is more to the American school of over-hopping than this.

Also, can a hop mature in its raw form, meaning a beer brewed with a suitably mature hop will age better and quicker than a younger counterpart?

I doubt it and I've never seen it suggested. In the raw it only has oxygen and other hop constituents to mature with; in beer it has a range of exciting things to do. And as suggested above, it's beer that matures (the range and balance of flavour components), not the hop.

[David Edge]

James McCrorie (CBA founder) is moving house down your way; in a few months when he's sorted out it should be possible to give you the opportunity to taste a well-hopped, well-matured ale. Steve D and some of the North Hampshire chaps have had that experience and found it an eye-opener.

Compared to James's beer, my prizewinners are 'quite good'. Once I got to brewing beer as good as that in the pub it was encouraging to know what the next level up was.

[delboy]

Also, can a hop mature in its raw form, meaning a beer brewed with a suitably mature hop will age better and quicker than a younger counterpart?

I doubt it and I've never seen it suggested. In the raw it only has oxygen and other hop constituents to mature with; in beer it has a range of exciting things to do. And as suggested above, it's beer that matures (the range and balance of flavour components), not the hop.

I could have sworn ray daniels has something about this issue in the section on hops in designing great beers book. I don't think it was the aromatic compounds but i seem to remember that the chemical profile of hops changed with age and depending on the hop variety this wasn't always detremential to the flavour profile. Must look that up again when i get a chance.

[David Edge]

mainly down to lack of storage facilities

The easy way is to use a little extra pale malt in the mash and then make an extra five or ten litres of a stronger beer in a stockpot on the cooker using the first runnings. Mature in a demijohn. Whether you want to do it is up to you - lack of storage space shouldn't stop you!

[Aleman]

I could have sworn ray daniels has something about this issue in the section on hops in designing great beers book.

You are right, the different hop components react at different rates as hops age. Myrcene for example is incredibly unstable (Even the pelletinisation process will practically remove all Myrcene from the oil profile). So as the hops age the ration of hop oils will change and so will the character (Spicy/floral/citrus) of the hops.

FWIW Anheuser Busch use a blend of 13 different hops some aged for up to 3 years in Buttwiper . . . This is mainly for the reason of consistancy . . . I mean it can't be for flavour purposes

[BigEd]

I tasted a high hop IPA at GBBF and it was from the 'dumb blonde' school - yes loads of hops, but no maturity, I hope there is more to the American school of over-hopping than this.

Unfortunately in many cases there is not. Lots of hops and lots of alcohol automatically makes a great beer in the eyes of many American craft beer slurpers. There are some good ones but too many, IMO, are as you described above. Not nearly enough malt body and a raw, sharp quality to the hop component are not uncommon in some of these brews. It's better than them drinking Budweiser and its' ilk I suppose but unless a couple of pints gets them crocked and the hops take the upper epidermis off their tongues there are a fair contingent of American craft drinkers who are conditioned to such beers.

[J_P]

So ideally we need a second measurement, one of aroma to go with AA%

I think I read something over the weekend that suggested it did go up and down with the season's alpha, but it wasn't an authoritative enough source for me to have made a note.

So it's possible that this years styrians (which are very low in AA% iirc) could in theory produce a highly aromatic beer by comparison with a beer with equall number of IBUs from another crop if that source turns out to be incorrect. ?

Apparently according to Wiki the aroma compounds within hops are the beta acids.

[David Edge]

I've broadly found Wiki to be a reasonable source, although after somebody posted last week that Hallertauer* was a hop variety I have my suspicions.

The aroma components are the essential (essential is the adjective from essence) oils - myrcene, farnesene, humulene and carophyllene.

I was talking to Peter Eells (head brewer at Taylors) at a Beer Writers' do in Leeds and he was emphatic that total bitterness derives from alpha, beta and gamma acid content; alpha acid is merely used as a reference because it is easy for the chemist to measure.

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* For those who don't speak German, Hallertauer is an adjective describing where things come from (Hallertau) - like Berliner (Weiss or Pfannkuchen), or Nuernberger (Wurst or Lebkuechen). If you asked nanny what was for tea and she said Dundee and Staffordshire you wouldn't know whether you were getting fruit cake and oatcakes, or marmalade and terrier; although the context would give you a bit of a clue. Hallertauer could therefore refer to any variety of hop or for all I know a sausage, a cheese or a type of waistcoat!

The confusion arises because one variety of hop grown in the Hallertau is called the Hallertau - these are Hallertauer Hallertau. East Kent Goldings and Worcestershire Fuggles work the same way, the well-known exception is Styrian Goldings which are neither grown in Steiermark (Styria) nor are they Goldings. (A Fuggles variety grown in Slovenia for what it's worth).

Our American chums are better at this than us. They know that noble European varieties grown in Murder City, Oregon or Oven Chips, Washington don't taste or smell as they do on their native soil; so they breed their own equivalents. Liberty, for example, was bred as a hop that would compare to Hallertauer Mittelfrueh.

[J_P]

I'm learning all the time!