Ask Mr. Wizard

Low-Alpha Acid Double IPA

TroubleShooting

Gordon Maness - Arvada, Colorado asks,
Q

I want to brew a Double IPA, but instead of using hop varieties like Warrior®, Amarillo®, Cascade, Centennial, or Chinook I want to use Saaz due to the low alpha acid content. I will just use five times more. Everybody I discuss this with insists that I use the high alpha hops for bittering. To me the bitterness of high alpha hops is harsh, and I am hoping that the low alpha Saaz will give the appropriate bitterness without the harshness. Kind of like Stone Brewing co.’s Götterdämmerung that I enjoyed at the last Great American Beer Festival.

A

You are not alone in your belief that certain hop varieties, especially many high alpha varieties, impart a harsh and unpleasant bitterness to beer. Some very large breweries also share this belief and prefer using low-alpha hops for bittering their beers. From an analytical perspective, hops high in the alpha-acid cohumulone are associated with this trait. Many a brewer selects hop varieties partly based on cohumulone content. I happen to be one of those brewers. I am also like your friends in that I do prefer using hops that have pretty decent alpha-acid contents, above 8% for hops added primarily for bittering, because high hop loads associated with using lots of low alpha hops for bittering and aroma can contribute grassy flavors.

Some of my personal favorite varieties to add to wort early in the boil include Perle, Northern Brewer and Nugget. Magnum, Horizon and Simcoe® are some other high-alpha varieties that have low cohumulone content, and appeal to those brewers looking for that particular combination. Mitch Steele from Stone Brewing Co. confirms that Magnum hops were used for bittering the Götterdämmerung and that a huge variety of German hops were used toward the end of the boil, in the whirlpool and in the dry-hop addition.

OK, enough of the textbook stuff about what is “correct” about selecting bittering hops. Innovation does not happen when brewers simply do what is the norm. If American craft brewers listened to the jabs from Europe and Britain about “catty” hop varieties being unfit for anything other than adding bitterness to beer, then Cascade hops would have never been used as an aroma variety. Today, Cascade is timid compared to some of the newer varieties bred to produce intense aromas considered wholly inappropriate not long ago. And German hop growers are even planting US aroma varieties that no traditional lager brewer would ever consider using.

As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I am sure that the brewers at Stone Brewing Co. who developed Götterdämmerung would encourage you to simply give your idea a try. The worst that can happen is that you end up with a bad batch of beer, and if things go the way you envision then you end up with something that makes you happy. Either way you will learn something that will likely make you a better brewer. Prost!

 

Response by Ashton Lewis.
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