If you’ve ever seen “dry-hopped” in the beer description and still don’t know what it means, today is your lucky day.
Put your learning hat on. It’s time to continue making you one of the most knowledgeable beer drinkers in Orlando.
What is dry hopping?
These hops will never be boiled…
Dry hopping is the process of adding hops to a beer AFTER fermentation. Which means the yeast is done eating all the sugar to make alcohol. We do this to add more hop flavor and aroma to a beer. You’ll see this in a lot of IPAs (especially New England IPAs) and Pale ales.
But it’s also making its way into other beers like our Saison du Houblon (dry-hopped Saison). Further, dry-hopping is also being used to create unique flavors in other fermented beverages like ciders and hard waters. Heck, breweries and hop farms are using it to make sparkling hop water these days too like https://h2ops.com/
The cool thing about dry hopping is that while we get the benefit of extracting the flavor and aroma of hops, no more bitterness from the hops is added.
Why?
Because the bitterness from hops comes from boiling them. Boiling hops releases the alpha acids that provide bitterness in your beer. The longer you boil your hops, the more bitterness you will add.
Therefore, dry hopping is a technique we use to add hop aroma and flavor without adding more bitterness.
Pretty cool, eh?
So the next time you see “dry-hopped” in a beer description, know that it should have a some good hop aroma and flavor. Something you hop heads really enjoy.
Cheers and see you next week for your next lesson.
Chris Rock
Co-founder
chris@rockpitbrewing.com
407-826-1773 – Brewery
321-427-6870 – Cell
