How many hops is too much?

I was discussing beer tastes with a friend of mine that states his beer preference as "the hoppier the better", and I thought I would posit:

How much is too much in regards to hops?

I know they're used to balance sweetness, but at what point could I make a bitter beer drinker pucker and say "that's too much"...?

Good responses would also be posting some of the hoppier beers on the market and some of the hoppiest recipes you've seen. Much appreciation in advance!!

Over 100 IBU is a waste of hops

Randy Mosher's book "radical brewing" has a recipe from someone in Nashville that calls himself the Hop God. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of hops with a calculated IBU of 473. I think there would be more hop solids than usable wort but it just goes to show that what one person might find insane is another persons gold. Over all I agree with nightshade, human taste buds can't really detect any differences between IBU's after 100.

You will never get a straight answer for this one! Everyone tastes things differently. Some are sensitive to the bitter flavor, some not. Some are sensitive to the floral hops, some the dank hops, some the pine hops...

CBMbrewer said:

human taste buds can't really detect any differences between IBU's after 100.

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I disagree - A 15% beer compared to a 4% beer, or a dry beer compared to a malty beer with the same IBUs will have a ridiculously different hop profiles/tastes. If you don't believe me, try a dogfish 120; 120 IBUs and cant taste a damn one of them!

The amount that, depending on one's brewing system, would create so much trub (or absorb so much wort), that one couldn't rack at least 5 gallons to your primary.

How dare you ask!!!!

Ive had Founders devil dancer (great balanced TripIPA) which is labeled as 200+, For such a large beer i couldnt see it over 120-130 in actuality...

4

br1dge said:

I disagree - A 15% beer compared to a 4% beer, or a dry beer compared to a malty beer with the same IBUs will have a ridiculously different hop profiles/tastes. If you don't believe me, try a dogfish 120; 120 IBUs and cant taste a damn one of them!

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Yea all you taste is Jetfuel.....

EDIT: Is that the GF wearing the coors light shirt? I dont like her shirt...:rockin:

Too many hops? BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!

I didn't say it was "good" I just said little hop flavor. I do t think its jet fuel at all, just too sweet for me

So... an ignorant question to put more fuel on the fire: How about mixing hops? How many different kinds can you add before you don't taste any of them distinctly?... and is that a bad thing..?

davekippen said:

You will never get a straight answer for this one! Everyone tastes things differently. Some are sensitive to the bitter flavor, some not. Some are sensitive to the floral hops, some the dank hops, some the pine hops...

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... and I'm not expecting a definitive answer, Dave. Just lookin' to get opinions and suggestions.

Well, the first thing I think of is the two major uses of hops.

One is bitterness. One is "hoppiness".

If too many hops are used for bitterness, the overwhelming bitterness may overpower the beer so it's important to look at the SG/IBU ratio for that.


As far as for flavor and aroma hops, it depends on the beer style. In a hefeweizen, any hops flavor is "too much". But for my favorite styles, IPA and APA, there is not such thing as "too much" in flavor and aroma hops!

It is easy to over bitter. But hard to over aroma.

If you EVER get to try Pliney the Elder you will realize there is no such thing as too much hops. Mmm... I''ve used 9oz in a 5 gal batch and ot was... hoppy... and AMAZING! I guess its all opinion though, so you will get a lot of different answers to your question... my vote is there is never too much. If you can, get some pliney.... also another good beer is Ninkasi's Tricerahops. I live near eugene, or so I get to go to their brewery... delicious beers and good people (if you can avoid the hippies and bums)

IBU's matter not. Look at me. Judge me by my biterness, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the hop, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the hops around you; here, between you, me, the boil kettle, the fermentor, everywhere, yes. Even between the Sours and IPA's.

I have heard of Pliney the Elder!... Excellent. I will have to be on the lookout.

Hamsterbite said:

IBU's matter not. Look at me. Judge me by my biterness, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the hop, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the hops around you; here, between you, me, the boil kettle, the fermentor, everywhere, yes. Even between the Sours and IPA's.

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... and this makes me smile

Pliney is good. Oak chips are cool. But my house ale is better without them.

Jeffro74 said:

So... an ignorant question to put more fuel on the fire: How about mixing hops? How many different kinds can you add before you don't taste any of them distinctly?... and is that a bad thing..?

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There is a point at which you just end up with a muddled aroma/flavor, but there is no hard limit to what you can/should do. Hop Union for instance now blends multiple varieties into pellets just for this purpose. 5 C's. 7 C's, Zythos, etc...This is useful for aroma purposes, not bittering.

It's a quest to find pliney the elder... search my friend... Russian "something" brewery in California... it's a mystic beast but an absolute mind blower (imho) but many agree. Good luck finding it. If you do, you will see that too much hops is try blasphemy cheers too all. I think I need to go to bed

Komocabo said:

It's a quest to find pliney the elder... search my friend... Russian "something" brewery in California... it's a mystic beast but an absolute mind blower (imho) but many agree. Good luck finding it. If you do, you will see that too much hops is try blasphemy cheers too all. I think I need to go to bed

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Russian River

Komocabo said:

It's a quest to find pliney the elder... search my friend... Russian "something" brewery in California... it's a mystic beast but an absolute mind blower (imho) but many agree. Good luck finding it. If you do, you will see that too much hops is try blasphemy cheers too all. I think I need to go to bed

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Russian River. Pliny can be hard to find in California unless you live close enough to the brewery or close enough to Stone, which almost always has it on tap. Outside of CA it gets progressively more difficult to find. Best bet would be to head over to the Sampling and Critiquing forum and trade with someone. Also, Elder is a good beer, but by no means a holy grail. The more you get hyped about it and the more trouble you go through to get it, most likely the more disappointed you'll be. It's a fantastic DIPA, but there are fantastic DIPAs all over the country.

So I'm gathering that aroma hops can be used in much more ridiculous fashion, whereas bittering hops has kind of a limit on how bitter folks will be able to taste it.... correct?

Now that's determined when you put them in the boil, right? Bittering is boiled longer and aroma are added in the last few minutes..?

What about dry hopping? Where does that put the hop flavor in respect to either bittering or aromatic?

Jeffro74 said:

So I'm gathering that aroma hops can be used in much more ridiculous fashion, whereas bittering hops has kind of a limit on how bitter folks will be able to taste it.... correct?

Now that's determined when you put them in the boil, right? Bittering is boiled longer and aroma are added in the last few minutes..?

What about dry hopping? Where does that put the hop flavor in respect to either bittering or aromatic?

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Yes, in general more aroma hops can be used. But it really depends on the beer style- I wouldn't expect to have huge hops flavor or aroma in a beer like a kolsch. But in an IIPA, bitterness AND hoppiness would be expected. In an American pale ale, I'd expect toned-down bitterness compared to the IIPA, but still hops aroma and flavor. So it's still all about balance and the style of beer.

Dryhopping is strictly for aroma, and will give no bittering to the beer at all.

Have people had any success with making malty sweet beers and overloading aromatic hops by dry hopping?!? My wife loves aromatic beers, but doesn't like the bitterness of a typical "hoppy" brew...

(side note: thank you to all! this is all superb information!)

Malty sweet beers typically need higher IBU's from bittering hops to balance it.

there is not such a thing as too much hops.

br1dge said:

Malty sweet beers typically need higher IBU's from bittering hops to balance it.

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But say you wanted to intentionally create a sweeter maltier beer and dry hop the bejeezus out of it... would that add a lot of the hoppy aroma and neglect the bitterness that comes from those hops? And how much, so?... Is there a way to measure the effect of the hops in relation to the time in the boil? (or not in the boil at all in terms of dry hopping..?)

Jeffro74 said:

But say you wanted to intentionally create a sweeter maltier beer and dry hop the bejeezus out of it... would that add a lot of the hoppy aroma and neglect the bitterness that comes from those hops? And how much, so?... Is there a way to measure the effect of the hops in relation to the time in the boil? (or not in the boil at all in terms of dry hopping..?)

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Sure, you could, but if you want a sweet malty beer, you could mash higher, which would leave a higher finished gravity. You could use less hops for bittering, and add most all of them inside of 5 minutes in the boil, and gain minimal bittering from them.

Ultimately, you'd need a decent level of bittering to make the beer even drinkable.

Dry hopping will add aroma, which is turn is linked to flavor as well.

There is a way to measure how much the hops contribute to the boil in terms of bittering. IBU's.. The higher the AA, and the longer it boils, the more bitter it will be.

If it's not boiled, it won't contribute any real measured bitterness to a beer.

br1dge said:

I disagree - A 15% beer compared to a 4% beer, or a dry beer compared to a malty beer with the same IBUs will have a ridiculously different hop profiles/tastes. If you don't believe me, try a dogfish 120; 120 IBUs and cant taste a damn one of them!

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Dogfishhead 120 tastes like really syrupy pre- fermented wort I couldn't taste and hops , didn't even really taste like beer or even a barley wine , but some people like me actually paid 10+ dollars for a 12oz bottle of it ... I'm an huge ipa fan but I would definitely not recommend any of dogfish heads ipa's , there are much better and much more realistically priced beers out there in my opinion .. Or ya could just make your own haha

Jeffro74 said:

But say you wanted to intentionally create a sweeter maltier beer and dry hop the bejeezus out of it... would that add a lot of the hoppy aroma and neglect the bitterness that comes from those hops? And how much, so?... Is there a way to measure the effect of the hops in relation to the time in the boil? (or not in the boil at all in terms of dry hopping..?)

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This is a slippery slope because your brain can perceive sweetness from aroma. So if you "dry hop the bejeezus out of it" , your brain could potentially tell you the beer is sweeter than it really is.

+HopSpunge+ said:

It is easy to over bitter. But hard to over aroma.

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I agree with HopSpunge ... Which has me worried about my latest batch , it's a 5 gallon partial mash clone of Avery's Maharaja iipa I like .. It calls for 7.5 oz of hops and I've brewed 7 ipa's out of my 10 batches ... But this 1 calls for 3 oz of Columbus at the start of the boil !?!? Does this sound off to anybody but me ? All the other ipa's I've done only call for 1 oz at the top end of the boil

ifearnothing0 said:

I agree with HopSpunge ... Which has me worried about my latest batch , it's a 5 gallon partial mash clone of Avery's Maharaja iipa I like .. It calls for 7.5 oz of hops and I've brewed 7 ipa's out of my 10 batches ... But this 1 calls for 3 oz of Columbus at the start of the boil !?!? Does this sound off to anybody but me ? All the other ipa's I've done only call for 1 oz at the top end of the boil

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That is alot of bittering hops, but could be proportional depending on the grain bill, and the recipe.. A really big sweet beer needs some serious bittering to tame the sugar.

Yeah there wasn't much for specialty grains but it had 11 lbs of extra light dme and a lbs of cane and a lbs of crystal sugar

+1 Yooper! Totally agree. Apa and Ipas are my favorites.