Huge thanks to the OC MashUps Homebrew Club for taking part in this xBmt! A club member named Kyle noticed my Brülosophy t-shirt during a flight we were recently on together and offered to let me crash a meeting to collect data. Always desperate for more panelists, I agreed and ended up having a fantastic time with a great group of homebrewers. I look forward to attending more meetings in the future! Taking a page from Derek Springer’s Five Blades Brewing blog, I decided to make a Vienna Lager with a simple grain bill and a single 60-minute hop addition, which I figured would help to isolate the variable being tested. To evaluate the differences between 2 beers of the same recipe bittered to the same expected level (IBU) with hops of different AA%. Unable to find much more than anecdotal stories on the topic, I figured it was time to put this one to the test! | PURPOSE | Inspired by the results of our last bittering hops xBmt focused on cohumulone levels, I began to wonder if the type and amount of hops used for bittering impacted a beer’s character in some noticeable way. If it’s true that early kettle additions contribute only bitterness, then a beer dosed with a large portion of a low AA% hop ought not differ much in character from a beer bittered to the same IBU with a small amount of a high AA% hop. When brewing these types of beers, the amount of hops used to achieve the proper level of bitterness is solely a function of AA%. It’s not uncommon to see a recipe for a classic beer style, such as English Mild or German Pilsner, include the use of a single hop variety. While many brewers take as a given that a 60 minute hop addition is used only to impart bitterness and contributes little in the way of flavor or aroma, others believe even early hop additions add something to a beer’s character. There are a few important factors when it comes to bitterness in beer, two of the most commonly focused on being the percentage of alpha acid (AA%) in hops and the level of bitterness (IBU) contributed based on the amount of time hops spend in the boiling wort.
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