Hops

It’s not your imagination: Hazy IPA tastes better than ever. Today's brewers, by sharing ideas and taking advantage of the best hops and other ingredients they can find, are continuing to innovate and push the style into increasingly flavorful—and increasingly drinkable—territory.

Lean, dry, and highly drinkable—but with the full-spectrum hop punch of an IPA—the extra pale ale is engineered for volume, for warm weather… and for thirsty brewers ready to hone their technique.

As today’s brewers explore the subtleties of hop-forward lagers, they’re finding ways to balance proper fermentation time with the brightest possible hop expression.

In this first article in a Deep Dive series, Indie Hops’ Jim Solberg discusses how they screen new hops for brewing and market potential.

Whether it’s selecting very different lots of Nelson Sauvin or trialing new hop products to see what they can contribute, North Park founder and head brewer Kelsey McNair says he’s always looking for ways to squeeze in more hop flavor—but without leaving the realm of the familiar.

To brew a beer that’s bursting with great hop aroma and flavor, it’s critical to choose and use the very best you can get. North Park founder and head brewer Kelsey McNair explains their own discriminating approach.

You don’t want your water to get in the way of hop-saturated flavors. Here, North Park founder and head brewer Kelsey McNair sketches out a few different water profiles that depend on style—and why he might adjust those profiles, depending on choices made elsewhere.

North Park founder and head brewer Kelsey McNair shares his approach and various techniques for achieving fully saturated hop flavor in IPA, West Coast pilsner, or any hop-forward style.

Intense, complex, and punchy, the hops of New Zealand are special—so, making the best beer you can with them deserves some special consideration. From Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud—or Middle Earth, if you prefer—here are specific tips from the brewers who know New Zealand hops best.

In recent years, the brewing world has learned a lot about terpenes, thiols, biotransformation, survivables, and more. Now, let’s zoom out to consider the essence of hop aroma—the oils that contain all those compounds—and make sense of them in a way that any brewer can use.

Saaz, Kazbek, and ... Juno? Whether punching up lagers or adding interest to IPAs, newer Czech hop varieties—little known outside their country—are an overlooked source of distinctive flavors.

How John I. Haas is minimizing variability and maximizing consistency with Sensory Plus™.

Ben Edmunds, cofounder and brewmaster of Breakside Brewing in Portland, Oregon, shares his insights on how to build and maintain a methodical quality program that can take your brewery’s beers from consistently good to consistently excellent.

In today’s hop-forward beers, whirlpool additions contribute many of the IBUs—yet the results are less clear-cut than adding to the boil. Research—some new, some not-so-new—may provide direction.

While the aromas aren't qualitatively the same, a relatively tiny amount of HyperBoost can effectively replace a large amount of hop pellets—with none of the wort loss. Paul Schneider, cofounder and head brewer of Cinderlands Beer in Pittsburgh, explains.

Brewers share strategies for reducing costs on craft beer’s most competitive style.

Before there was hazy or even a defined West Coast style, there was an IPA that emerged as a brashly hopped counterpoint to British ale. It never went away—but it evolved. And today’s brewers are making it better than ever.

For many of us, hop aromas are just about the most impenetrable of all smells. Yet understanding more about how the brain works with aromas can help us to make and enjoy really delicious beers.

Now that hazy IPA is ubiquitous, brewers are working harder than ever to make novel examples that stand out in the crowd. From hopping to yeast selection, here’s how a few of the pros are leaving their unique thumbprints on the style.

While Chinook and other classic C-hops may not be as exciting to brewers today as Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy, some of the best IPA brewers in the country continue to treasure the “classics”—and they keep finding new uses for them, too.