Let’s talk about hops.
Hops are one of the main ingredients in almost every beer brewed. It serves a few purposes:
- acts as a preservative
- used for bittering
- used for flavoring
- used for aroma
Many beers try to strike a balance between hops and malt, bitter and sweet. Beers that are heavy on one end will commonly be referred to as “hop bombs” or “malt bombs”. Bomb doesn’t necessarily imply the beer is bad; rather, it’s just heavy on that ingredient compared to it’s counterpart.
When brewing, there are typically five stages during which you can add hops:
- Pre-boil, or “first wort hopping”(a.k.a. FWH) – for bittering and aroma
- Beginning of boil – for bittering
- Mid-to-late boil – for flavoring and aroma
- End of boil – for aroma
- Fermentation, or dry hopping – for aroma
Hops with high alpha acid levels are typically used for bittering, since most if not all of the flavor disappears during boil. First wort hopping is not necessarily a new thing, but has home brewing becomes more and more popular, it is starting to become more common.
The most common forms of hops are pellet and whole cone. Extract and paste are starting to become more popular as brewers are discovering there is little difference in the results.