From Vol. 5, No. 10, February 2022
Mountain Culture Beer Co. in Australia has laid claim to “brand new brewing technique, ‘Microdosing,’ where small hop additions are added many times throughout the brewing process.”
Basically, they are a) creating blends, and b) adding those blends at different times in the brewing process, mostly during fermentation. “This means that when the hops go into the beer, they’re being activated with different pH values because of where the beer is at, and also different levels of yeast activity throughout fermentation. This, theoretically, strips different flavors and characteristics from the hop pellet,” co-founder DJ McCready said.
This looks a lot like what many other brewers are doing to promote biotransformations that take place in the presence of active yeast.
And, you will recall, “continuous hopping,” albeit in the kettle, was part of the origin story for Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s 60 Minute, 90 Minute and 120 Minute IPAs. Founder Sam Calagione said he took inspiration from a television chef who suggested adding ingredients for a soup in equal ingredients would result in more integrated flavors.
Calagione rigged up a plastic bucket and vibrating electric football game he bought at the Salvation Army to add hops in regular increments for the first five-barrel batch of 60 Minute at Dogfish’s Rehoboth brewpub. When the brewery began making 90 Minute at its production facility, a brewer would stand over the kettle, continuously tossing in pellets for 90 minutes. A mechanical hopper, dubbed Sir Hops Alot, automated the process, and when Dogfish replaced its 50-barrel brewhouse with a 100-barrel system it added Sofa King Hoppy, a pneumatic cannon connected to the brew kettle with hard piping.