(Press Release)

FREDERICK, MD—In an effort to further Maryland’s burgeoning hop growing industry, Flying Dog Brewery held the State’s first hop selection Monday, August 26.

Eight local growers submitted hops to be considered for Secret Stash, Flying Dog’s annual Harvest Ale that is brewed with locally-sourced ingredients. Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, Magnum, and Nugget hop varieties were all submitted.

“We wanted to replicate the process of how we select hops from large-scale production growers from the Pacific Northwest,” Flying Dog Brewmaster Matt Brophy said. “Not only does that ensure the highest quality hops for our beer, but it also provides in-depth feedback to our local growers that they can immediately apply to their business.”

Hop selection involves cutting into dried, compressed hops and rubbing the individual cones between your hands. This process allows the full aromatics of the hops to come through, which provides a good indication of the aromas and flavors it will impart on a beer.

“What we’re looking for is a combination of aromatics and the appropriate moisture level from the drying process,” Brophy said.

Brophy and a team of Flying Dog brewers evaluated all hops submitted, which were anonymously labeled. They chose to purchase Cascade hops from Black Locust Hops and Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, and Magnum hops from Organarchy Hops. Black Locust is located in Northern Baltimore County and Organarchy in Western Maryland.

“The hop industry in Maryland has come a long way in the last five years alone,” Brophy said. “And as the industry continues to grow, the quality of what is being produced becomes paramount.”

Flying Dog will also use estate Cascade hops grown on the brewery grounds.

Secret Stash Harvest Ale is being brewed today and will be available in late September.

Varietal hop development has seen a vigorous upswing recently, while classic cultivars are just as popular and noble as ever. Brewers are finding creative ways to showcase them all. This wealth of variety and expression is pure gold to homebrewers, if sometimes a bit overwhelming. Skillful, expert hopping is not as daunting as it may seem, and an understanding of a few basic concepts is all one needs to fine tune that recipe—be it balance, bombast or something in between.

Hop Utilization

Most recipes require a certain level of bitterness, as measured in International Bittering Units, or IBUs. Attaining this level requires proper hop utilization, extracting the bittering alpha acids (AA) throughout the duration of the boil. To calculate IBU, all that’s needed is an IBU equation (there are several available) and a utilization chart that relates kettle gravity to boiling time. Sure, you’ll need a little mathematical moxie, but plugging in the variables will become second nature.

My advice is to pick one equation and one chart from a reliable brewing resource and stick with it. Then, critically evaluate your finished beer and adjust as needed. Find an equation that accounts for pellet vs. whole hops. A full rolling boil is the surest and best way to get consistency and adequate extraction from hops.

A hydrometer or refractometer will become your best friend on brew day, as it is needed to monitor gravity during a session. All of this will require some attention to detail and practice, but the results are well worth it.

Recipes will occasionally give bittering additions in AAU, or alpha acid units, which is the weight in ounces of hops multiplied by alpha acid percent. This is used in fairly standardized recipes as a shortcut and assumes that all other parameters will be met while brewing.

There are some considerations to make between using whole or pellet hops. Some brewers swear by whole hops as a superior contributor to flavor and aroma. They have a lower utilization factor. Pellets, macerated and extruded, are more processed. They are easier to store, and they separate from wort in the kettle better and provide superior utilization. Some brewers use a hop bag with whole hops in the kettle, but I do not recommend it since it can give inconsistent and/or poor hop extraction.

Building a Schedule

Putting together a coherent and effective hop schedule is artistic brewing at its best. The three common additions are known as bittering, flavoring and aromatic. Hop types are generally labeled by their best application: bittering (high AA, harsher flavors), aroma (subtle, pleasant flavor and aroma, low AA) or dual-purpose hops (fairly high AA, but still excellent contributors to flavor/aroma). There dozens of each and, in fact, quite a few new recent cultivars from the U.S., England, Germany and New Zealand. Hop vendors and homebrew shops offer full descriptions of each. Those specs are an invaluable resource for building hop schedules. Many of these new hop varieties are a result of the very influential and robust North American brewing scene.

Flavor components are best extracted at 20 to 40 minutes in the boil, and aromatics from 20 minutes to flame knockout. Boiling drives off aromatics over time, so choose your timing carefully: the later, the better. A “hot stand,” letting the wort steep without chilling for 30 to 40 minutes post-boil, will also help intensify late kettle additions.

If you are seeking to clone a schedule of your favorite commercial beer, check if the brewery offers some clues on its website.

First Wort Hopping

First wort hopping is an old German method used to smooth out the hop profile and marginally increase hop utilization. It has gotten the attention of modern brewers and is an excellent option for homebrewers. Hops (up to a third of the overall measure) are added to kettle while it is being filled, exposing the hops to hot, but not boiling, wort. This prolonged exposure seems to seal and enhance the more delicate flavors and aroma, while at the same time increasing AA extraction and softening the harsher, hoppy edges.

First wort hopping will increase utilization by about 10 percent.

Dual-purpose varieties are tailor-made for this method since they offer excellent flavor/aroma qualities as well as decent AA content. First wort hopping is wise for any beer that favors later hop additions, be it a modern hoppy barrage or something more subdued. Whole hop flowers are extraordinarily suited for FWH.

Dry Hopping

Dry hopping, originally used to help preserve aging cask beer, had the side benefit of imparting wonderful hop aromatics. It is now largely used for the aromatic effect, and seldom are those hops in contact with the beer for more than a few days. It is done at cellar or fermentation temperatures, and all fleeting volatiles are retained. Dry hopping is best employed late in the fermentation stage or in the keg/cask used for serving.

Brewers who opt for the fermenter method have a couple of options. Hops can be added to the primary fermenter as activity wanes, left for a few days and then racked to the secondary. Use pellets in carboy primaries and either pellets or whole cones in a bucket primary. Alternatively, the hops can be added to the secondary fermenter during racking. They will eventually sink to bottom of the carboy, out of the way of the racking cane during transfer to bottling bucket or keg/cask. Expect a little hazy carryover during the rack.

Since most homebrewers keg rather than cask their beer for serving, 5-gallon corny kegs offer a superb chance to duplicate the cask method. Whole hops are preferred to pellets. Stuffed into a muslin or hop sack, they can be suspended with a string in the keg or the “pillow” allowed to sink to the bottom. The flavor will change dramatically over a few days as the scrumptious soluble compounds are leached from the cones. There is no need to pasteurize the hops used for dry-hopping.

SMaSH and Single Hop Brewing

There is no better way to investigate the footprint of a single-hop variety than with SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) brewing. Dual-purpose hops fairly scream for the practicality and simplicity of this strategy, especially if you are a minimalist brewer, as I am. There are so many American hops available now that a virtually endless array of beers can be crafted. Classic noble hops are excellent candidates for German or Czech SMaSH brews. Explore English dual-purpose hops, such as Bramling Cross, First Gold, Pioneer or Progress, and one can’t go wrong with the classic East Kent Goldings. Once a recipe has been honed, iadjustments are easier to make.

Body and mouthfeel can be adjusted by altering mash temperature, color and caramelization, and intensified by prolonging the boil. With some creative thought, you’ll be amazed at the number of beers that can be made this way with English pale ale, Pilsner, Vienna or Munich malts and two to five single-cultivar hop additions. If single-malt brewing isn’t your thing, add some character malt to the grist, but keep the grain bill simple to tease out the hop character more distinctly.

Hop Bursting

The popularity of hop-forward beers has brought the concept of hop bursting to the forefront. If you’ve ever wondered how brewers get that sublimely round bitterness and enormous flavor and aroma into their beer, it is probably via hop bursting. The method entails adding nearly all hops within the last 30 minutes of the boil, including the bittering hops. This will preserve all ephemeral flavor and aroma, and softly contour the bitterness. It requires at least twice the normal amount for bittering, and even more for subsequent doses.

Boil for 30 minutes to get good kettle interactions and then start the hop schedule over the next 30 minutes. An addition every 5 or 10 minutes through kettle knockout followed by a “hot stand” and dry hopping will furnish an impressive burst. I think this method works impeccably for regular IPAs, offering an intense hop profile with less potential palate fatigue.

No matter what kind of beer is on your brewing docket, there is always a way to make it better. These simple strategies should help get you there. From helles to hop bombs, all will benefit from a deft hoppy hand.

English IPA
(All-Grain)

5 gallons, OG 1.065, 55 IBU

Mash 1# 60° L crystal malt and
12# English pale ale malt
for one hour at 152° F

First Wort Hop: .5 oz Bramling Cross

Bittering: 40 IBU (about 1.5 oz) Bramling Cross, 60 minutes

Flavor: 1 oz First Gold, 20 minutes

Aroma:  z Bramling Cross,
10 minutes; 1 oz East Kent Goldings, 5 minutes

Ferment with Wyeast 1028 or White Labs WLP005

Dry Hop: .5 oz East Kent Goldings whole hops in keg/cask if serving draft, pellets in secondary fermenter if bottling

Hop Burst American IPA (Extract)

Full wort boil (starting with 6 gallons to yield 5 gallons), OG 1.070, 60-65 IBU

Steep 1.5# 40° L crystal malt for 20 minutes at 155° F and add 7# Light DME

Boil for 30 minutes and add
2 oz Centennial hops

Boil for 10 minutes and add
2 oz Amarillo hops

Boil for 10 minutes and add
1 oz Amarillo hops

Boil for 10 minutes and add
2 oz Cascade hops

Turn off the burner and do a 30- to 40 -minute “hot stand”

Chill as normal and ferment with Wyeast 1056 or 1332 or White Labs WLP001 or WLP041

SMaSH German Pils (All-Grain)

5 gallons, OG 1.052, 40 IBU

Mash 10# German Pilsner malt at 150° F for one hour

First Wort Hop: 1 oz Hallertau Mittelfrüh,
Tettnang or Hersbrucker hops

Bittering: 30 IBU, same hops as FWH

Aroma: 1 oz same hops as FWH

Ferment at 50 to 53° F with Wyeast 2124 or 2042, or White Labs WLP830 or 838

Alternative Recipes

Replace Pilsner malt with up to 30% Vienna or 15% Light Munich

For Czech Pils, use Saaz hops throughout and Czech or Bohemian Lager yeast

For American Pils, use Mount Hood,
Liberty or Vanguard hops

Try a blend of hops or some new German cultivars: Opal, Saphir or Smaragd

For extract, use 5# Extra Light DME and
1# Munich LME

In fact, there are multiple alpha acids, and brewers consider the percentage of particular humu-lones and resulting isomers when choosing hops and formulating recipes. Consumers simply equate hop bitterness—as opposed to overall bitterness, which may be influenced by other factors, such as roasted malt—with International Bitterness Units (IBU), although they only approximate the amount of iso-alpha acids in a beer and the impression they leave.

Various research indicates genetics create differences in bitterness perception just as they do in aroma perception. “Just like some people are colorblind, some people are taste-blind and simply can’t taste bitter things that others can,” said John Hayes from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “It turns out that different bitter foods act through different receptors, and people can be high or low responders for one but not another.”

Experiments in Germany have determined that hop-derived substances activate three specific bitter receptors (out of 25 that have been identified), and they react differently to the various isomers. Those German food scientists found bitterness perception does not increase linearly and does not continue to increase at all above a certain level of intensity—about 50 milligrams per liter iso-alpha acids (broadly about 50 IBU). Bitterness, of course, is only part of taste, and flavor is a combination of what is tasted in the mouth and aroma. University of Pennsylvania psychologist Paul Rozin established a larger importance of smell in perception of flavor in the 1980s, finding there are differences between orthonasal (breathing in) and retronasal (breathing out) perceptions of odors. Some of this is thought to be because of the way odors are first absorbed in the olfactory epithelium, differing based on the direction of the airflow across the epithelium, which is inside the nasal cavity. Retronasal smells activate parts of the brain associated with signals from the mouth, which helps to explain why we perceive flavor as occurring in the mouth even when the largest component is provided by what we smell.

That’s one reason why a drinker might describe a beer as smelling bitter even though bitterness is a taste sensation perceived mostly on the tongue. This psychological interplay between aroma and taste that creates flavor has obvious implications for the overall hop impression of any beer, providing another explanation for reports such as these:

An experiment conducted by 35 members of the Rock Bottom Breweries group found no apparent relationship between measured bitterness and hop flavor or hop aroma, but a significant correlation between perceived bitterness and hop flavor or hop aroma. It appears that when drinkers smelled or tasted “more hops,” they tasted additional bitterness even if the level of iso-alpha acids was the same.

In a study in Belgium, scientists used hop oil fractions to create beers with different aroma profiles. Drinkers rated beers dosed with spicy hop essence higher in intensity of bitterness than beers without the essence even though they had equal bitterness units. In contrast, dosing beers with floral hop essence resulted in lower intensity scores. The spicy hop essence also enhanced mouthfeel.

He didn’t offer a long list of adjectives about their flavor, simply stating they were “the finest and most aromatic hops grown.” Spalt Spalter, as they are known today, likely hadn’t changed much since 1511, when the town banned the export of highly sought-after hop cuttings, nor have they since. One difference that Hans Zeiner, manager of the Spalt hop growers association and a farmer himself, has noticed is requests from brewers for hops picked later, so they are richer in essential oils.

“The brewers want different hops. Some want a greener hop; some want a hop that is a bit more mature. It is about the aroma, the aroma they want.” He cautioned against waiting too long. “If it’s too old, the aroma is not so fine anymore. The aroma has changed, but I cannot say how it changed.” In Spalt “fine” seems to be the only adjective necessary.

Contrast that with a different sort of description from John Mallett, production manager at Bell’s Brewery in Michigan. Mallett spoke at a seminar during the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, along with other members of the Hop Quality Group, recently formed because these brewers recognize the need for better communication with American hop growers. Mallett quite obviously was referring to Bell’s own highly hopped Hopslam, a double IPA, when he explained the importance of telling farmers the sort of flavors and aromas brewers want.

“(Imagine) if you’d gone to the hop growers association 20 years ago and said, I’m going to have a beer that we make 4,000 barrels of one time a year,” he said. “It flies off the shelf at damn near $20 a six-pack, and you know what it smells like? It smells like your cat ate your weed and then pissed in the Christmas tree.”

John Mallett of Bell’s Brewery is a member of the Hop Quality Group, which recognizes the need for better communication with American hop growers.

The adjectives used to characterize hop flavor in beers today obviously include more than “fine.” For instance, there’s catty, polite language for cat piss; and dank, slang for potent marijuana. They reflect that more than a few consumers now embrace pungent, intense flavors considered offensive not long ago. But they also describe aromas such as pine, pineapple, grapefruit, tangerine, melon, mango, lychee, passion fruit, gooseberries, blueberries, stone fruits . . . even Lifesavers and sauvignon blanc.

The Barth-Haas Group, the world’s largest supplier of hop products, recently suggested that hops producing such unique flavors be called, logically enough, “flavor” (or “flavour”) hops. This is a bit confusing for Americans familiar with the brewing process. They understand that brewers boil hops, usually those with a higher percentage of alpha acids, for an extended period to extract bittering iso-alpha acids, and those hops are classified “bittering” or “alpha” hops. Because essential oils are lost during boiling, to preserve them brewers wait until later in the process to introduce “aroma” hops. Sometime between adding the hops for bitterness and those for aroma, they may include a “flavor” addition. This might result in floral and spicy notes found for hundreds of years, or the bolder new flavors of today.

To avoid any confusion, the Society of Hop Research in Germany more recently adopted the label of “Special Flavor Hops”  for varietals bred to exhibit attributes previously considered “un-hoppy.” Peter Darby, who oversees hop breeding in Great Britain, refers to them as “impact hops,” while others simply refer to them as “special.” That many drinkers want these new flavors is clear. Why some hops deliver them and others do not is not.

What Makes American Hops Different

Hops add many positive attributes to beer, most notably aroma and flavor, the latter a result of what’s experienced in the mouth, including bitterness. The chemistry involved in bitterness is relatively well understood. Not so with aroma. More than 20 years ago, two researchers in Oregon proposed establishing an Aroma Unit (AU) comparable to the International Bitterness Unit (IBU). They intended that brewers would use their Hop Aroma Component Profiles, which identified 22 specific compounds, along with the AU, much as they would use the alpha acid content of a particular variety to adjust hopping rates. Since the 1960s “scientists have tried to identify the compound responsible for hoppy character in beer without success. Hoppy aroma in beer is probably not attributable to a single component but rather to the synergistic effect of several compounds,” they wrote in 1992.

Hop scientists have learned much since then, but that statement remains frustratingly valid. J.L. Hanin first used steam distillation to isolate hop oils in 1819, and later in the century Alfred Chapman isolated the key compounds myrcene, humulene, linalool, lynalyl-isonate, geraniol and diterpene. After the introduction of gas chromatography in the 1950s, researchers soon identified more than 400 compounds. The contribution many of them make is not clear because they occur at low levels, individually below perception thresholds. Synergy may change that.

Twenty-first century discoveries have brought some elements into focus. In 2003 Toru Kishimoto at the Asahi Breweries  research laboratory in Japan, determined a compound called 4-mercapto-4-methylpentan-2-one (otherwise referred to as 4MMP) is a main contributor to muscat grape/black currant character apparently unique to hops of American heritage. It has a low odor threshold and occurs naturally in grapes, wine, green tea and grapefruit juice. Hops grown in the New World, including New Zealand and Australia as well as the United States, contain 4MMP and other compounds observed only at trace levels in hops grown in England and on the European continent.

Other researchers in Japan found several American varieties contained compounds that were transformed into limelike and other citrus flavors during fermentation, but that existed only at very low levels in European aroma hops.

Something obviously happened to European and American hop varieties during the course of at least 1 million years since they split from one another. The genus Humulus likely originated in Mongolia at least 6 million years ago. A European type diverged from that Asian group more than 1 million years ago; a North American group migrated from the Asian continent about 500,000 years later. Although three North American botanical varieties exist in the wild, scientists don’t agree on how much they differ from one another, but they clearly are genetically unlike the Europeans. Virtually all hops cultivated today either are direct descendants of European types selected for their brewing and agronomic qualities, also known as landrace hops, are European varieties crossbred to improve those brewing and agronomic qualities, or are a cross between European and American varieties.

That last category didn’t exist until 1917, when E.S. Salmon of Wye College in England took a hop collected in the Manitoban wild, and thus obviously native American, and pollinated it with English hops. Today, every hop in demand for exotic, fruity flavors is such a cross.

Consider Citra, the poster child for special flavors. Descriptors of its aroma include grapefruit, lime, citrus, gooseberry, tropical fruits, lychee, melon and sauvignon blanc winelike. It is half Hallertau Mittelfrüh, a German landrace variety often referred to as “noble”; one-quarter U.S. Tettnanger, which is in fact the English landrace variety Fuggle; 19 percent Brewer’s Gold, one of the first hops to result from the crosses Salmon made in 1917; 3 percent East Kent Goldings, another English landrace variety; and 3 percent unknown, which might well be—like Brewer’s Gold—influenced by American wild hops.

(View a graphic on the future of Citra)

Hop Oils and the Magic of Biotransformation

When brewers talk about hops, they actually mean the cones of a female hop plant. Hop oils constitute up to 4 percent of those cones, but more often much less. The four most prominent are myrcene, caryophyllene, humulene and farnesene. The first is a monoterpene, meaning it consists of 10 carbon units, while the latter are sesquiterpenes (15 carbon units). Myrcene has a green, herbaceous, resinous aroma associated with fresh hops and not always considered desirable.

It often constitutes 50 percent or more of the oils in American cultivars. Most of its aroma will disappear during boiling, but it can be prominent in dry-hopped beers because it has a low perception threshold on average. People’s perceptions of aromas, in fact, vary widely, presenting another challenge for all seeking to understand hop aroma. The prominent oils in hops are found in many other plants, and in the case of myrcene these include thyme, lemongrass, verbena, pistachio and fruits such as mango and grapefruit.

In their oxygenated form, sesquiterpenes are more likely to survive boiling, resulting in herbal and spicy aromas also described as “fine” or “noble.” Farnesene, for instance, makes a distinct floral contribution to beers hopped with Saaz. It often constitutes less than 1 percent of oils in bred hops but up to 20 percent in Saaz. One specific caryophyllene alcohol compound, an oxidation product, may add a very strong cedar wood note many describe, again, as “noble.” However, as much as half of the drinking population may be blind to this particular compound. Floral, mildly woody, spicy are qualities that not long ago almost exclusively defined pleasant hop aroma. They remain desirable today, but may be overwhelmed by the addition of hops—particularly bold hops—late in the boil or post-fermentation.

As a hop ripens, many other monoterpenes form along with myrcene, including linalool, geraniol, nerol, citronellol and limonene. Although their presence is often measured in tenths of a percent, they are essential to producing citrus, fruity, floral and woody aromas, whether through synergy or interaction with yeast.

Research in Japan points to the importance of the physical interaction and biotransformations that take place in the presence of yeast. In one study, scientists investigated how geraniol and citronellol, accompanied by an excess of linalool, contribute to citrus aromas and flavors. Focusing on the Citra hop, they sought to identify the key flavor compounds contributing to the aromas specific to the variety—including passion fruit, gooseberries and lychee.

They brewed one beer with only Citra hops and another with Hallertau Tradition and coriander seeds. Both Citra and coriander are rich in geraniol and linalool. The finished Citra beer contained not only those two oils but also citronellol, which had been converted from geraniol during fermentation. The same transformation from geraniol into citronellol occurred during fermentation of the beer made with coriander. Taste panels perceived the beers as relatively similar.

The same researchers followed with another study that compared the composition of monoterpene alcohols in various hops and examined the behavior of geraniol and citronellol under different hopping regimens. They concluded that blending geraniol-rich hops increased the amount of geraniol and citronellol in beer, and that this enhanced citrus character. They determined that hops more easy to find in the market, in this case Apollo and Bravo, could produce aromas similar to hops in short supply.

Still another study in Japan pointed to just how complex sorting out the variables can be. In that one, scientists examined the changes in hop-related compounds during the fermentation process, finding that keeping everything else the same and changing only the yeast strain resulted in noticeably different hop aromas.

Such results illustrate the need for still more research.

Oregon hop merchant Indie Hops, founded only in 2009, pledged more than $1 million for what can broadly be described as aroma research at Oregon State University. “Our ultimate goal is to determine what is it in hop oil that drives flavor,” said Thomas Shellhammer, who is in charge of the brewing science education and research programs at OSU. Shaun Townsend, an OSU faculty member who heads the breeding aspect of the partnership with the Indie Hops, would then use the information to develop cultivars with particular oil profiles.

Meanwhile, There’s Alchemy

Greater understanding of the hop aroma and flavor matrix doesn’t automatically make it easier to integrate bolder hop aromas and flavors into the larger beer flavor matrix. Patrick Ting, for 30 years a hop chemist at Miller (and MillerCoors) before recently retiring, pointed out it is a mistake for brewers to try to equate specific oils with specific odor compounds. “You can’t say we’ll add a little bit of this, a little bit of that,” he said.

Although hop aroma remains something of a black box, brewers find ways on what seems a daily basis to maximize these new flavors. Given a chance to brew with two of the new German “Special Flavor Hops” early in 2012, Bear Republic Brewing brewmaster Richard Norgrove started with a base best described as a wheat wine. He blended Mandarina Bavaria and Polaris in a ratio of 60 to 40 or 40 to 60, depending on the addition, making one at the beginning of a 90-minute boil, one with 60 minutes remaining, one with 40, and then dry hopping with the pair.

“I like to do a lot of blending, maybe change the way the oils come across,” he said. He talked in terms of abstract art versus portrait art, probably because he paints with watercolors himself. “With watercolors you dilute or strengthen the vibrancy of color by the way you use water.”

Dry hopping may eliminate one bit of the mystery for brewers, because post-fermentation hopping preserves much of the aroma in a freshly kilned hop. However, the translation is not direct, and Sierra Nevada brewmaster Steve Dresler said that can be good for his beer. The brewery has learned if yeast is not still active at the beginning of dry hopping, some odor compounds will not develop. “We don’t get the same floral estery notes in some other beers if we use the torpedo [dry hopping] process simply cold without yeast contact time,” he said.

Sierra Nevada literally invented its “torpedo,” a device packed with hops through which its brewers circulate beer after fermentation, to dry hop more efficiently. It uses Magnum (a high alpha hop rich in oil), Crystal and a restrained amount of Citra to dry hop Torpedo Extra IPA. “You can overbrew with Citra,” Dresler explained.

Once again, Citra is a poster child for the new. It can be divisive, and that’s likely part of its appeal. When Sierra Nevada began evaluating Citra about five years ago, men on the brewery’s tasting panel described tropical fruit flavors, while women called the same beer catty or said it reminded them of tomato plants. Women on average detect odors at much lower concentrations and are more likely to rate smells as more intense and unpleasant, but many men share an unfavorable perception of Citra.

Gene Probasco, who started the first American private breeding program at John I. Haas, oversaw the creation of Citra. “[The cross] was made for aroma,” he said, and at the time “mild” was a synonym for “good” when it came to aroma. That was 1990.

It was part of a project for a large brewery client, and nothing came of it. Two other large brewing companies essentially owned the rights, one after the other, to the hop during the next dozen years, but ultimately neither of them had a use for it. Only after the Hop Breeding Co. began sending samples to craft breweries was it recognized as special. That was 2008. Understanding why other equally special hops have the impact they do may take a little more time.

In Washington’s Yakima Valley, Jason Perrault developed the new rock star, IPA-worthy hop that is Citra—high in all-important alpha acids and yields notes of pineapple and mango—at Yakima Chief Ranch, now part of the joint venture with John I. Haas, Inc. called the Hop Breeding Co. Dr. John Henning hopes his new Mt. Rainier hop—spicy with a hint of licorice—catches on; he created it at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS) on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, OR. It’s a workhorse Noble variety hop akin to grassy Hallertauer that is fairly disease resistant, tolerant to downy mildew and high-yielding with the added benefit of a desirable aroma—if you like a little licorice notes mixed with your citrus. And across the Atlantic, Dr. Peter Darby finally gained the EU Plant Variety Rights for his Sovereign hop, which exhibits classic English hop aroma like that of Fuggles—earthy with a kiss of tropical fruit—but as a dwarf variety so attractive to British hop growers. After years of breeding research and evaluation dating back to the 20th century, their efforts are just now blossoming in new beers. So imagine what you’ll be drinking starting in 2020 based on what they’re doing in their respective offices today.

Is it rocket science? Not exactly. NASA recently retired the space shuttle Discovery after 30 years of exploring Earth’s low orbit so as to focus on exploring deep space, beginning with the Mars Science Laboratory and plans for the Juno spacecraft already in the works. While hop-breeding programs are, by nature, futuristic, there is way less computer hardware involved and way more dirt. Sure, there’s some software involved, but hop crosses yield seedlings that are planted in test farms and evaluated based on agronomics and aromatics. There’s no HAL 9000 in this Beer Odyssey capable of olfaction. Instead, someone like Perrault, for example, simply stands in the field, grinds some leaves between his fingers, brings them to his nose and has no clue if he’s getting a whiff of the next Simcoe (the pine-and-grapefruit scented megastar for which he holds the patent). But there’s roughly one-hundredth of a percent chance that he smells the future. And it kinda smells like citrus, or tomatoes, or possibly cheesecake.

Historically brewers relied on local hop farms to produce the bittering agent they needed to balance the sweetness of the malt in their beers. Farmers planted the type of hops traditionally grown in the area; the ones best suited to local soil and climate conditions. Even today you expect a Czech pilsner to use Saaz, a German lager to contain Hallertauer and English pale ale to be made with East Kent Goldings.

So important were certain hop varieties that countries guarded them as national treasures. In Bohemia, King Wenceslas II declared that anyone caught trying to remove hop cuttings from what is now the Czech Republic would face the death penalty.

Things are a bit different today. Thanks to global agriculture markets, modern transportation and technology making hop pellets and extracts possible, most American brewers look at hops as a musical scale rather than a single note. It’s common for beers to have three or four hops in their recipe. In fact, Matt Brewing in Utica, NY, uses a total of 10 different varieties of hops—to go along with 10 different malts—to make Saranac Imperial IPA.

According to Ralph Woodall, director of sales with Hopunion in Yakima, WA, there are approximately 120 different hop varieties commercially utilized around the globe at any one time. The number fluctuates as new hybrids are created—such as Simcoe and Amarillo—and others fall out of favor with brewers, such as Ultra.

Woodall points out the type of hops used define the beer. “In the early days most brewers only had one type of hop available, so they used what they had,” Woodall says. “Even in the industrial days of brewing before the craft movement, hops were pretty much used just for bitterness—it was one dimensional.”

Brewers started blending hops as they recognized that some hops offered bitterness for flavor, while others served up more aroma notes. But like Bordeaux, a mixture of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, petit verdot and malbec grapes, the nuances of the single varietal are lost to the blending. Now some brewers are going back to hop’s past and making a case for pale ales made with a single hop variety.

Triple Rock Brewing in Berkley, CA, has been taking its customers on a hop voyage since the middle of 2009. About once a month a new hop variety is used in the brewery’s Single Hop Experience Pale Ale.

My goal is to educate people about the impact of hops,” says Rodger Davis, head brewer at Triple Rock. The experiment has already featured Chinook, Challenger, Ahtanum and Amarillo. “Sometimes it works out nice. I personally think that Amarillo is a nice hop by itself. Even when it does not work as well, we may use the hop again down the road as part of a blend.”

For many brewers, it’s much more than that. It also means figuring out ways to make beers that reduce the brewing process’s carbon footprint as much as they can. For others, it means all that, plus making organic beer, using ingredients that themselves do as little harm as possible to the ground they grow in, using methods that reduce waste, encourage diversity or eschew potentially harmful chemicals. One thing you can say about almost all brewers, they really care about the impact they’re having on the environment and do more voluntarily than perhaps any other industry. In many cases, it’s also good for their bottom line, but by and large they do it because it’s the right thing to do, often regardless of the cost. The Birkenstocks just make their feet feel better.

Historically Green

For centuries, all farming was organic. That’s not because landowners consciously made that choice, it was simply because pesticides and the intensive modern agricultural methods used today had not yet been invented. There’s a certain irony to our present-day farming system being called “conventional” while the ancient farming methods that fed civilization for millennia are known today as “organic.” No one would argue that modern farming hasn’t increased the amount of food we produce, but the use of pesticides and the industrial agronomy that made that prosperity possible has come at a high cost that many people are only beginning to realize.

Probably the first public assault on conventional farming was Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, published in 1962, which strongly questioned the safety of synthetic pesticides. She’s often credited with launching the global environmental movement that led to DDT being banned in 1972. That was also the same year the phrase “think globally, act locally” was coined at a UN Conference on the Human Environment and also when the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement was founded

Over the next few decades, interest in environmental stewardship increased, with farming and consumer groups pressuring governments to regulate production at every level of the food chain. This, in turn, spread to virtually every sector of business and society thanks to a broader awareness of environmental issues such as climate change, dependence on oil, biodiversity and the importance of recycling. People today are far more aware of these issues than our parents’ generation and they are increasingly demanding food that’s safe and free from chemicals. It’s no surprise, then, that sales of organic products in the United States grew from $1 billion in 1994 to $17 billion in 2006. In 1998, the percentage of organic food sold was less than 1 percent; today it’s a little over 2½ percent.

What does all of this have to do with beer, you may be asking yourself? Aside from water and yeast, which are effectively neutral with respect to being organic, beer is made from two or three agricultural products: barley, wheat and hops. Without organically-made ingredients, there can be no organic beer. So the future of organic farming is intimately tied to organic beer.

Green Beer

Green beer in this context, of course, means organic beer. What makes a beer organic seems like it should be simple enough, but it’s more complicated than you might imagine. Since most people buy organic beer with the best of intentions, to support the environment and sustainable businesses that do likewise, it’s worth taking a look at what makes a beer organic. The obvious answer is that it’s one made with organic ingredients. But how the USDA defines that is a bit more complicated.

There are four levels of organic labeling: “100 percent organic,” “organic,” “made with organic materials,” and “some organic ingredients.” The differences in these four are listed [below]:

100 percent Organic

Must contain 100 percent organically produced ingredients.*

Organic

Must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients.* Must not contain added sulfites. May contain up to 5 percent of:

1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form; and/or

2. other substances, including yeast, as allowed by law

Made with Organic Ingredients

Must contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients.* Must not contain added sulfites; except that, wine may contain added sulfur dioxide in accordance with law. May contain up to 30 percent of:

1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form; and/or

2. other substances, including yeast, as allowed by law

Some Organic Ingredients

May contain less than 70 percent organic ingredients.* May contain over 30 percent of:

1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients; and/or

2. other substances, without being limited to those allowed by law.

* not counting added water and salt.

The problem with the USDA’s definition is that every beer is roughly 5 percent alcohol and 95 percent water, plus a fractional amount of flavor compounds (including vitamins, minerals and trace elements), dietary fiber, carbohydrates, hop oils and resins and proteins. When brewing beer, for every 10 pounds of malt, only a few ounces of hops are used, almost regardless of style. This means that a beer could use organic barley and no organic hops and still technically fit the USDA’s “organic” definition, as long as the USDA has been satisfied that the particular type of hops used in the beer is “not commercially available in organic form.”

Until very recently, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ingredients that organic companies were claiming weren’t available organically and, therefore, a non-organic substitute could be used. But there’s a difference between allowable and acceptable, and consumers supporting organic products precisely because they were better for the environment began complaining that the distinction was being blurred.

Allowing goods to be called “organic” that contained non-organic ingredients was creating confusion as to exactly what was being offered for sale. This consumer backlash forced the USDA to change their policy and limit the number of items that could be substituted and still be called organic. After a public debate, the number of ingredients that could be substituted was fixed at 38, with hops still on the list.

So when it comes to organic beer, hops have become the crux of the debate. There was a time when the only available organic malts were pale and crystal malts, but today almost any common malt is available organically. Organic hops, on the other hand, remain more elusive. Hops are a fragile crop, susceptible to many pests, fungi and mildew problems.

Today virtually all hops are grown in just three states: Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Pesticides and fertilizers have greatly enhanced yields, and hop growers have developed varieties with better yields that are disease resistant. Many of these varieties have become an integral part of beer’s wide array of styles. Certain hop varieties have become associated with specific styles, making it all but impossible to use a substitute and get the desired results. You may be able to make a pilsner without Saaz hops or an American pale ale without Cascades, but they won’t taste quite right.

Of the roughly fifty common hop varieties, only about one-fifth have shown the potential to be viable organic crops. Stephen Carpenter, great-great-grandson of the Yakima Valley’s first hop grower, tried unsuccessfully to grow the very popular Cascade hops organically. For many years, organic hops were available primarily from New Zealand, with as much as 80 percent of all organic hops grown by a single farmer, the Oldham family, on 25 acres.

The Hops Bottleneck

Last year, Anheuser-Busch entered the organic market with two brands, Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale. During the public debate on labeling, they were strongly criticized for not using 100 percent organic hops by misguided consumer groups who believed that if you are big enough and have enough money, then it should be easy enough for you to get whatever you want, including organic hops. But the hops business doesn’t work like that. Hop growers are just beginning to come out of a decade-long down cycle that has seen many leave the business just as demand for hops is on the rise. By every account, there is a worldwide hop shortage that has no easy solutions. Unfortunately, A-B bowed to public pressure and announced their organic beers would be made with 100 percent organic hops. Even they’re unsure where a steady supply of hops is likely to come from.

Thanks to A-B’s having been forced into this decision, small craft brewers who make organic beer may very well have a much tougher time finding organic hops and even staying in business because what hops may be available will be at least twice as expensive as conventionally grown varieties. According to Morgan Wolaver, founder of Wolaver’s Organic Ales, this is perhaps organic beer’s biggest challenge. “We need to find an answer to these crop issues, because the controversy will not simply go away. If a beer is made with 100 percent of the more expensive organic hops, will consumers be willing to spend another dollar per six-pack?”

The early organic beers all had a somewhat similar taste, in no small part because of the limited number of available organic ingredients. Regardless of style, they had a certain quality that easily distinguished them as an organic beer. This is not to suggest they were of poor quality, just that many of the early organic brewers were using roughly the same small number of ingredients, resulting in a similarity of taste. Happily this problem has evaporated and enough of a selection can be found so that today’s organic beers are every bit as flavorful as their non-organic counterparts.

At last year’s Great American Beer Festival, five organic brewers were awarded a gold medal for an organic beer in regular categories competing against non-organic beers. As Morgan Wolaver, explains it. We take the approach that we’re “not brewing an organic beer, we’re brewing a great craft beer that’s made with organic ingredients.” And if enough hops can be found, the future of organic beer seems as bright as a clear golden pilsner—organic or otherwise.

Green Breweries

While organic beer is an important part of what it means to be a green brewery, it’s not the only thing breweries are doing to be green. Behind the scenes, running a brewery has become perhaps an even bigger piece of the ecological puzzle. Countless breweries that don’t make organic beer are taking steps to minimize their impact on the planet. They do this not just because it’s the right thing to do—though for many that’s enough—but also because it makes sense from a business point of view as well, saving untold dollars annually and contributing to their economic health.

Brewers tend to be amateur engineers—they have to be in order to get the most out of their equipment. In craft brewing’s early days, breweries were built from discarded dairy tanks and whatever else could be found. So it’s hardly a surprise that brewers are early adopters of efficient technologies and out of necessity often come up with their own.

Whether big, small or somewhere in between, every brewery does a lot of little things that can add up to quite a lot. Greg Koch, co-owner of Stone Brewing, believes “every incremental step you can take is an important one. It’s like a puzzle, you take a lot of little pieces and try to fit them all into place.” He stresses that we should all focus on the positive steps being taken and celebrate those rather than criticize what someone isn’t doing.

Not all green innovations are new, of course; some are good old-fashioned common sense. Since at least the 1880s, Anheuser-Busch has been donating their spent grain to local ranchers to use as cattle feed. Few breweries today don’t do likewise or use the grain to make compost. Though perhaps the most creative use of spent grain is how Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland, OH uses it, which is to grow organic mushrooms, serving them in their restaurant. Destihl Brew Works, opening this fall in Normal, IL, will be giving their spent grain to the same local dairy farm where they’ll purchase cheese for the brewpub.

In 1998, Alaskan Brewing became the first craft brewery to install a CO2 recovery system. It doesn’t let the CO2 escape, instead re-using it to carbonate the beer at the end of the brewing process. Most of the big breweries have been doing this for years, but it’s expensive for small breweries, though many of the larger ones like Boston Beer Co. and Sierra Nevada have also installed CO2 capture systems. Many others work with local power companies to buy credits to offset greenhouse gases. Butte Creek Organic Brewery actually plants enough new trees to sequester the amount of carbon they use each year. Last year, several acres of trees were planted to offset the 185 tons they used in 2006.

Brewing off the Grid

Almost a decade ago, the employees of Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing voted to forgo their bonuses in order to take themselves off the grid, as they became the first brewery to embrace windpower to meet all of their energy needs. In nearby Durango, all four breweries—Carver, Durango, Ska and Steamworks—recently announced that 100 percent of their energy is coming from a green, renewable source—also primarily wind power.

Larger breweries usually do their own water treatment, which removes demand on city sewer systems. In many cases, methane produced as a part of this process is recaptured and used to supplement energy needs. Sierra Nevada uses the methane generated by their wastewater treatment plant to power fuel cells that in turn power the brewery, creating more wastewater for the treatment plant.

And like Anderson Valley and others, both Stone Brewing and Sierra Nevada are installing solar arrays on their roofs to generate additional power off the grid. Ted Vivatson, of Eel River Brewery, is completely off the grid with the world’s first 100 percent bio-mass fueled brewery, powered entirely by energy created as a byproduct of a hog plant down the road from his brewery.

Despite the immense power needed to run a brewery, it’s transportation that uses up the most fossil fuel. To reduce this, many breweries are creating biodiesel fuel to run their own trucks, in some cases from the vegetable oil and grease from their restaurants. Anheuser-Busch’s Jacksonville and Fort Collins plants have converted to biodiesel fuel for their entire fleets and have even started growing energy crops on nearby acreage in a pilot program to see if they can grow their own fuel.

Anheuser-Busch and Miller have a distinct advantage over almost every other U.S. brewer with regard to transportation: both have multiple breweries strategically located throughout the country, thereby reducing the distance trucks must travel to deliver beer. Others encourage alternative work commutes, such as bikes, public transit, carpooling, or fuel-efficient vehicles, and New Belgium even gives each employee a bicycle on their one-year anniversary with the company.

Water Wisdom

For every gallon of beer, as much as ten gallons of water is used during brewing and cleaning. Examining smart ways to conserve water, several breweries have reduced that ratio to four or five-to-one: Uinta Brewery from Utah has gotten it down to three-to-one.

All breweries try to recapture as much water as they can to reuse in other parts of the brewing process. Rube Goldberg would be proud as hoses and pipes snake around the brewery, taking water drained from the mash tun and using it to heat the secondary liquor tank before using it to push out the water from the heat exchanger. Both Abita Brewing in Louisiana and New Belgium use a Merlin external wort boiling system, which circulates wort between two tanks, reducing evaporation by half and saving up to 75 percent in fuel consumption.

Recycling everything has been taken to new heights, with many breweries managing to keep 95-99 percent of what would otherwise be filling garbage dumps. Because so much of a brewery’s trash is made up of cardboard, cans, glass and paper, there’s very little that can’t be recycled. In 1959, Coors began recycling their new aluminum cans and almost thirty years ago, Anheuser-Busch created the A-B Recycling Corporation to collect cans for recycling, up to 27 billion each year.

Several dozen small brewers and all of the big ones are doing their part by using aluminum cans instead of bottles. Canned beer is lighter and can be packed more densely on trucks, reducing fuel costs. More can be recycled, with 51 percent of the can reusable, as opposed to only 22 percent of bottles; plus, less energy is used to recycle them. Most aluminum cans use 70 percent recycled material when they’re made. There is also less packaging to throw away, since there are no cardboard six-pack carriers. As Oskar Blues’ frontman Marty Jones explains it, “One recycled can saves the energy equivalent of 6 ounces of gas, or the electricity to power a guitar amp for a couple hours.”

But perhaps the ultimate recycling is Anchor’s Small Beer, which is made from the run-off of Old Foghorn, their barleywine-style ale. And with zero packaging waste and zero transportation cost, the average brewpub is pretty green, too. But as for innovation, you have to admire the living green brewery roof built on top of the new 70,000-square foot expansion to Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewery. Natural stone was used to create a beer garden and the rest of the roof was planted with two kinds of sedum, a succulent plant that will grow to cover the entire roof, absorbing heat and water in the process. This will also extend the life of the roof itself, since it’s the plants that will be exposed to the elements, not building materials.

The steps breweries, large and small, take to be green make the beer industry a leader in environmental stewardship and community involvement are all the more impressive for being completely voluntary. Being green is just part of a brewery’s personality. The next time you visit your local brewery, ask them what they’re doing to be green. It’s a safe bet it’s something amazing. Think Globally, Drink Locally.

Dedicated to the memory of Steve Harrison, 1951-2007. In almost thirty years with Sierra Nevada Brewing, Steve Harrison was a tireless champion of sustainable business practices. In his honor, friends and family have set up the Steve Harrison Fund, which will be used to promote environmental sustainability and alternative energy projects.

It began as a reaction to the dumbing-down of mainstream beers, whose alpha acid levels are now about level with the human threshold, which is about 6 IBU (International Bittering Units). Like the recently starved, we eat our fill…then keep going. I used to think we’d get over it, but people often have trouble giving up their obsessions. In other words, massively hoppy beers (MHBs) are here to stay.

The lineage for these beers traces back to the pale ale family, deep gold to pale amber beers that originated in England around 1800. Back then, pale ales bound for India were dosed with additional hops as a preservative. Word got back to England and the style became popular there, as well as on our side of the Atlantic.

Resurgent home and craft brewers have latched onto pale ales and India pale ales (IPAs), reinventing them as we Americans tend to do. Balance, once a hallmark of the style, is jauntily tilted to the bitter side. The bad boy pine-and-citrus perfume of the uniquely American Cascade hop suffused the first beers to bear the American pale ale flag. Today, Cascade hops and its relatives are still touchstones for the style.

How Much is Enough?

To brew a beer that is hoppy to its very core requires some strategy. MHBs are bound by the physical limits of solubility of alpha acid (the bitter element in hops) in wort, yet brewers are still seeking ways to create ever-hoppier beer. This article will serve as a bit of a tutorial.

Hops contain three things of interest to brewers: aroma, bitterness and the preservative effects of tannins. As hops are normally added during the boil, there are trade-offs between aroma and bitterness. Alpha acid needs an hour or so of boiling to transform into a bitter, soluble form. But during that time, aromas waft away, so late additions to the kettle are also needed. Additions at 60, 30 and 5 minutes (or some variation on that schedule) are typical. Brewers at Dogfish Head have gone so far as to add hops continuously to their series of 60-, 90- and 120-minute IPAs, first with a hilarious arrangement that actually employed a vibrating tabletop football game (!), which has since been replaced with a more businesslike screw conveyor. Bottom line: adding hops to the boil is a great start, and will be your primary source of bitterness.

Somewhere between aroma and bitterness is something called “flavor,” which is not nearly as simple a term as one might think. Your tongue, of course, is capable of distinguishing tastes such as sweet, sour, salty and bitter, plus a couple of more recently added ones such as fat and umami (glutamate). But this limited capability doesn’t fully describe the sensations we experience. It turns out that aroma receptors in the top of the throat/back of the nose process aromas a little differently than other olfactory signals from the nose, and are involved in detecting familiarity and preference.