The Big 4 - Beer Ingredients: Hops

The Big 4 - Beer Ingredients: Hops

26 Feb 2022

by Mick Wust

 Ever wanted to know more about what’s in your beer? This series dips into the ingredients that make beer what it is, and what each one brings to the table.

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Hops are the most talked about ingredient in the craft beer world today.

Many modern drinkers love hop-forward beers, making these little green flowers the celebrities that everyone worships. A couple of decades ago, the rise of American pale ales and IPAs started to highlight the punchy flavours and resinous bitterness that hops can bring to a beer. Five to ten years ago, there began a shift towards a focus on fruitier hop aromas and flavours. Today, there’s a huge market for hazy IPAs bursting with tropical aromas but low in bitterness, and there’s constant exploration into new hop varieties, new technologies, and new processes to get the most out of hops.

But hops aren’t new, they’re not only found in these hop-forward styles, and they have more to offer than just tropical aromas.

What are hops?

Hops are small green cones that grow on bines (similar to vines) of the humulus lupulus plant, a member of the hemp family. If you cut or break a hop cone open, you’ll see little yellow glands containing lupulin powder. Lupulin contains the oils and acids that give bitterness, aroma and flavour to beer.

The use of hops in beer can be traced back to more than a millennium ago, and by the 1500s almost all beers across Europe included hops in the recipe.

What do hops bring to beer?

Hops are a preservative. The acids in hops work alongside the alcohol to help to keep your favourite drink from spoiling.

Hops add bitterness to beer. Brewers boil the hops to extract the bitter alpha acids; the longer the hops are boiled for, the more bitterness they release into the beer. This is the main element that makes beer an acquired taste, but it also makes beer complex and more-ish, since bitterness balances the sweetness of malt. 

Hops add aroma and flavour to beer. Hops contain aromatic oils that bring a vast range of aromas and flavours to a beer. While craft brewers will sometimes add other ingredients, usually when you pick up fruity, resinous, floral or spicy notes in your beer, they’re coming from the hops. A West Coast IPA that tastes of grapefruit and pine? An Aussie pale ale oozing with passionfruit and pineapple? A New Zealand pilsner with notes of white grapes and lime? Thank the hops for those fun characters!

How does one little flower do so much?

Different hop growing regions. Just like with grapes, hops are grown in regions around the world known where the soil and climate affect the plant. German hops tend to have a different character to American hops, and English hops and Aussie hops are a world apart.

Different varieties. Some occur naturally, but many of the hops in your beer are hybrids that have been bred to emphasise different characters of acids and oils. 

Different forms. Brewers can choose to use whole hop cones, dried compressed pellets, extracted hop oils… there are plenty of hop formats available, and each has different ways of expressing the nature of the hops used.

Different uses in the brewing process. Brewers add hops at the start of the boil to impart bitterness; they add hops later in the boil to maximise aroma and flavour from those volatile oils; they let hops sit in the beer while it’s fermenting (called dry-hopping) to supercharge a beer with aroma without adding extra bitterness.

Taste the difference

For a nuanced approach, you can try Cubby Haus’ California Common Steam Ale and see how UK hop variety Northern Brewer lends a mild fruity, earthy and woody character to the beer. Or check out Grassy Knoll’s Valley Lager, which exhibits Mandarina Bavaria - a new world German hop variety that’s known for its citrus flavours.

Perhaps you could compare Ocean Reach Brewing’s IPA, Sunday Road’s Blackwoods Pale Ale, Dad & Dave’s Citra and Mosaic IPA, George The Beast NEPA from Springside Brewing, and Aether’s Hop, Skip & Jump IPA. Five beers with different malts and hop line-ups and a range of bitterness, but they all contain the punchy and famous American variety Citra. Can you pick the similarities (and differences) between them? 

Of course, you could always go with the All Frenchies Experience mixed pack. Frenchies plays around with American and European hop varieties, cryo hops, double dry-hopping… there’s plenty in here to show off the diversity of hops.