Aroma hops if dry hopping?

Howdy all.

Is there really a point to late addition hops (5 minutes and under) if you are going to dry hop? Both are for aroma, and the strength you get from dry hopping seems like it would overpower anything else. Would hate to be wasting good hops and good money.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Well, by the time you would actually be dry-hopping the beer, the fermentation's done and you can get a pretty good idea of what it tastes/smells like. So at that point you'll be in a good situation to decide if you want to bother with the dry hops or not.

But as a general statement, late hops and dry hops definitely add different hoppy characteristics to the beer. So (apart from you doing your evaluation of your actual beer), on the whole, I'd expect that usually I'd go ahead and add the dry hops.

Yeah, that is what I was figuring. Dry hopping does give a different form of aromatics (fresher in my experience) but also seems to overpower the other hops aromas from boil. So if you plan to dry hop, is there really any reason to add aroma hops? I was figuring not.

Sounds like it's time for an experiment. Run the same recipe twice or split a batch. Hop one at the end of boil and the other one don't. Dry hop and let us know what you think of the results.

Personally, I would think that there is still a reason to do an "aroma" addition, but I like to complicate things. I think it adds depth personally.

While dryhop aroma is pretty dominant in a fresh beer, the aroma falls off quite quickly. I have a feeling that without boil or steep additions, you would have a beer with a seriously short shelf life unless you continued to dry hop in the serving keg.

Both of these thoughts sound good. Should do a with and without aroma hops brew with dry hopping. And ahurd110 you are right, it is a different aromatic but drops off faster than standard additions (or atleast it does in my experience).

Will have to just have to play with it!

They definitely add different characters. Late boil additions tend to age better as was said before and dry hopping seems fresher. I did the exact experiment you are talking about and to me a beer with dry hop only tastes hollow. I don't know if that makes sense but there is no core to the hop aroma.

dannypo,
Thanks for the info! I figure it will really be a from brew to brew thing, so at some point I will just do my own experiment. My wife is an amazing taster, so will have her be my final judge.

The hops in the boil are being cooked. The hops that are being used to dryhop are raw. Think of it as eating cooked vegetables as opposed to raw vegetables. Same vegetable but totally different characteristics.

Additionally, you are getting some isomerization and bittering by using hops in the boil even if you throw them in at flameout. You get none from dryhopping.

I like that analogy. the bitterness/flavor from late hops is so minimal (especially with removing hops immediately after the fire is off) has minimal affect. But the change of notes makes sense.