From Vol. 4, No. 1, May 2020
I’ll be talking about “The Science and Art of Blending Hops” next month during HomebrewCon Online. You’ll find much of the science in the archives here. Some of what might be called art or creativity results from process. Brewmaster Matt Brynildson shared the approach to putting together hop blends for Firestone Walker’s Luponic Distortion series via email. The brewery releases a new Luponic beer about every 120 days. The base beer remains the same, and each new one features a hop blend built around new or experimental hops varieties.
Here’s a lightly edited version of the process Brynildson described:
“It’s evolved over time and we have developed some pretty cool analytics and sensory approaches to support the original basic grind, rub and sniff approach. One of our brewers, Evan Partridge, has moved into full time R&D with a heavy focus on hops. He works directly with Kevin Troxel, our analytical chemist, to profile raw hops, single hop trials and map out the results. In the end, we take a lot of notes, do a lot of single hop trials and do our best to familiarize ourselves with the individual hop varieties so that we can make meaningful blends.
“We have an ongoing ‘hop bucket’ project that helps us group the ever-growing available hop cultivar list, particular to our needs, which helps us in putting together complimentary blends. It has also helps us identify hops from one region that compliment a hop grown in another region. As much work as we have put into the analytical side of this, it’s still a lot of sensory and alchemy at this point—which is the fun part.
“We look at the available hops first. Most of the time we have one or two hops that we have not used yet or something that we have recently gained access to. Most of the time it’s something we rubbed and sniffed during a selection trip. Like an experimental hop from HBC [the Hop Breeding Company] or something new coming in from the Southern Hemisphere or something new being offered, like a while back when the hops were coming up from South Africa. Anton [Lutz, who heads hop breeding in Germany] might have turned us onto something . . .
“We build the blend around this ‘feature hop.’ These hops would never just get plugged into our Union Jack, Mind Haze or other year-round IPA program. Simply not enough hops available yet and non-sustainable, even if we think it’s an amazing hop that needs to go into a beer. We first grind, rub and smell the hops on the table and do our best to put words to what we sense. We can run them through the GCMS [gas chromatography-mass spectrometry] and get a chemical profile as well, which is useful. We will also do a single hop/dry hop experiment to look further into what that hop can lend. But most importantly, we grind, rub and sniff pellets . . .
“It usually results in a short list of descriptors: juicy fruit, passion fruit, orange marmalade, lime zest and the like. We then look at the rest of the hop closet to find complementary hops to blend. Most of the time we have extensive notes to fall back on, but that will also come out onto the table for a grind, rub and sniff alongside the ‘feature hop(s).’ We can then take those blends to the 1 hectoliter test tanks for a trial dry hop to confirm our table blends.
“I like the approach of getting the hops out of the table because anyone can do it. It first and foremost identifies questionable quality and can be instrumental in avoiding problem hops—whether they are oxidized and roached through processing and handling or if they have other aroma issues that we think would result in problems.
“The classic is that freezer burnt, tea like veggie aroma that you just know is going to carry that ‘pellety’ tea like veggie note to the final beer. It sucks, because you invested in the hop, but it just isn’t going to make good beer, so can’t use them for the dry hop. We move the hops that won’t work into the hot-side program and select the interesting aroma forward hops for dry hop blends.
“Over time you build a familiarity with what works and what won’t and you clearly recognize a brilliant hop you know will kill it as a dry hop. You also learn the best amplifier hops along with the supporting hops that will elevate the characters in the feature hops without stealing the show. For example, we have really got a lot of mileage out of German flavor hops in this way. Sometimes they don’t have the stones (flavor intensity) to light up a beer on their own but they play well with others and create amazing complexity in the end.
“In some instances, they can mellow a brew and make it more approachable and drinkable and in other blends they can elevate the juicy fruit character without it getting catty and too sulfur driven. Mosaic is an easy example of a great amplifier hop. You don’t need much to bring the fruit up in another cultivar without making yet another Mosaic-focused beer the world already has enough of.”