5 Top Facts About Hops

Hops are usually a beer geek's favourite ingredient in beer. But do you know all there is to know about these little green nuggets? Hoppy beers are very popular right now, they've been very popular for a while. Spoiler alert - they're not one of my favourite beer styles. And also, I don't really like the descriptor ‘Hoppy’.  Hops are so many different things that you can't just use one word to describe them. As we all know, there are four basic ingredients in beer. We need water, malt (usually barley), yeast, and hops to be able to make our beer. These little green nuggets are really important in our beer, even in our dark beer. So here are my top five tasty tips you need to know about hops.

Do you like hoppy beer styles like IPAs, American Pale Ales and New England IPAs or even differs? If you do? Let me know in the comments. 

Tasty Fact 1 - What are hops?

The hops are a plant, they grow on a bine, not a vine, which grows clockwise around a structure. Our hop is actually a little cone and it is the female part of the plant.  It is related to cannabis and there are some beer descriptors that will remind you of this. If you've ever heard the word Dank, this also relates to cannabis. Hops haven't always been used in beer though. Before hops were used a mixture of herbs and spices were used called gruit to flavour beer. 

Tasty Fact 2 - What do hops do to beer?

Image courtesy of @saltyinsheff

Well, they add bitterness. They add flavour and aroma and they also add preservative elements. Before hops were used in beer it tended to spoil quite quickly. The natural oils in hop cones have natural preservatives. And that's why you might have heard that story about how IPA  had lots of hops added to it to preserve it on its long journey from England to India. Hop bitterness is really important in all of our beer styles. Malt adds a lot of sweetness and that needs to be balanced out to make it palatable. But depending on the beer style would depend on how much bitterness we need to be added to the beer. Bitterness is added by the Alpha acids that are found in the hops. Each hop variety has a different percentage of alpha acids, so brewers have to pick the right one for the amount of bitterness they want. To get this bitterness hops are added to the beer and boiled. There is a scientific process called isomerization that then through the boiling process, the alpha acids are turned into bitterness. 

Hops also add flavour and aroma through essential oils. Think about when you open up one of those lovely hoppy beers and you get that whiff of citrus or tropical fruits - that will be coming from the oils in the hop cones. But each hop has different elements of aroma and flavour. And that depends on where it's from.

Tasty Fact 3 - Where are hops grown? 

So where do hops come from and why does this make a difference? There are four main hop growing areas but hops are grown in other parts of the world. Historically, the main regions are English hops, German and Czech hops (sometimes also referred to as European hops), American hops and New World hops - that's Australia and New Zealand. However, there are also hops being grown on the continent of Africa, there are Asian hops being grown, so you can find hops in other areas. Each of the historical regions have classic aromas and flavours to expect in the beers that use them. 

English hops will add earthy, woodsy and herbal notes to beers. German and Czech hops are generally floral, perfumy, peppery, minty and you can also sometimes get a little bit of spice from them. American hops that are used in the massive IPAs and New England IPAs that are very popular at the moment have piney, citrus, resin and tropical fruit notes. They can also sometimes have a catty, onion and garlic nature if they are used extensively. And finally, our New World Hops from Australia and New Zealand showcase passionfruit, melon, pear, stone fruit and tropical fruit. You might also get a bit of white wine grape - a really well known New World hop is Nelson Sauvin, which is actually a cross with Sauvignon Blanc grapes. 

It's really important that a brewer chooses the right hops for the type of beer that they want at the end of their brewing process. Of course, we are trying out lots of new things with hop growers. We're even looking at growing hops from different regions in other regions. One that's been looked at at the moment is English Cascade, which is more traditionally grown in the USA.  The soil and the climate will make a difference. 

Tasty Fact 4 - When are hops added to beer?

This is really important because it really determines how much bitterness or flavour and aroma are added to the final beer. Traditionally, hops need to be added at the beginning of the boil phase of the brewing process. This helps that isomerization happen which adds bitterness to the beer and balances out the sweetness. However, you can also add hops towards the end of the boil. This makes the essential oils survive longer because a boiling process will boil them away and you will lose those lovely floral, citrusy, fruity notes. 

There are other points during the brewing process where you can add hops to beer as well.  Brewers can add it during the whirlpool. This is a point where the boil has ended and the wort (beer before it’s fermented) needs to be cooled. A commercial brewery will have a whirlpool that will create a whirlpool with the wort, separating a lot of hop matter and what's called ‘trub’.  This produces a much more clear beer. But at this point, the wort is still hot, so you can add hops, essential oils will continue to be extracted, you might get a little bit of bitterness, but a lot less than if you added it during the boil. 

You may also have heard of dry hopping. This happens after the beer has been cooled down and hops are added to the beer almost in a big tea bag. You're steeping the hops in the beer allowing those essential oils to flavour the beer just like a teabag in a cup of tea. There are other times that brewers can add hops to the beer and there's various different experiments happening to find the best ways to extract as much aroma and flavour as possible from our hops. But that's a little bit more advanced.

Tasty Fact 5 - How are hops stored? 

You may have seen different types of hops - sometimes they look like dried flowers or you may have seen them as pellets. When harvested, hops are dried and then compressed into bales. That preserves them for longer use throughout the year. They can be used by brewers as whole cone or they can be ground down and compressed further into pellets.  

Green hops, also known as fresh hops or wet hops are when the hops are directly taken from the bine and put into beer. This is a period of time around when hops are being harvested, usually the end of September to the beginning of October.  When the hops are picked they have to go into the beer within 48 hours or we lose the lovely flavours and aromas that can be added. I live in Kent where we grow lots of hops.  My local breweries can get hops into their beer within seven hours of them being picked, which is pretty quick. After this period of time, they do need to be dried to save all of the aromas and flavours.

Whole leaf hops can soak up a lot of the beer when used as they have more leaf matter, so brewers lose a percentage of beer when hops are used in this form. However, they are easier to clean out of your brewing kettle. A lot of brewers will use pellets. There are different concentrations or pellet hop - T 90 means you've got about 90% of the hop matter in there. T 45 is even more concentrated, you've only got 45% of the actual hop matter - so less of the leafy parts of the hop is good because the leafy parts can add astringency to your beer. Pellets are also easier to store and they are more concentrated. However, these do disintegrate straight into your brew kettle so they can make a big mess to clean up. 

There are other hop products that can also be used. Some brewers will use hop oils or extracts. If you use an extract, you are going to get less off flavours over time. When a beer is allowed to come into contact with UV light the hop oils react with UV light and create a skunky flavour. If you're using an extract, this is less likely to happen. There are certain beers on the market that use clear glass bottles which afford no protection from UV light.  They will be using hop extracts to stop this skunking from happening. The best brewers use brown bottles instead to prevent off-flavours from skunking.

By understanding these important facts about hops you can gain a clearer understanding of what is in your glass.  And that will make you a more confident beer taster!  Need a bit of help with your beer tasting skills?  Grab my FREE beer tasting mini course (delivered by email so you can complete it at your own pace) by clicking here.