BarleyWine hop rates

I just got done adding my new 'Blue Agave Nectar Barley Wine' to the fermenter, and am a little concerned that it's under hopped per my tastes. To start off my brew day I picked up both SN Bigfoot Ale, and Anchor's Old FogHorn. I like the smoothness of the foghorn, but couldn't get enough of the hops smell/flavor that was in the Bigfoot. Are these mutually exclusive? Does the foghorn's sweet smootheness only come through because of what I percieve as lower IBUs?

The recipe


I havn't added any sucrose yet. I plan to add additional yeast and sucrose after the gravity drops below 1.040

Without the sucrose and at 4.5 gallons right now, just after pitching, my OG is 1.111 (26.1 Plato) and my IBUs are 70.8. If I go ahead with my later dilution/sugar/yeast addition I should end up with a predicted OG of 1.123 (28.6 Plato)

I just noticed that the Bigfoot has 90 IBUs and that's why I'm worried all of a sudden. The Bigfoots OG is 1.096 (23 Plato) per SN's website.

I know that in the English tradition it would be fine to have a beer as big as mine with no more than 50 IBUs, but I'm an American hop head who's about to harvest a few pounds of Cascade.

Did I undershoot the bittering hops? Will massive amounts of dry hopping help?

Found this info on the 'Old Foghorn' in another thread

Looks like 90% 2-row/pale malt and 10% 55L crystal malt, 1.100 OG, 60 IBU using all cascade hops. And according to the Anchor website, apparently they only use the first runnings of the mash, which I found interesting.

Blu Agave 70.8/123 = 0.58
Old Fog Horn 60/100 = 0.60
Bigfoot 90/96 = 0.94

I like to shoot for 0.9-1.0 BU:GU ratios on barley wines.... especially if they're gonna age awhile and have some bitterness drop out. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of sweet beers.

Can I increase the BU:GU ratio by boiling a hop tea and adding it to the primary?

Check out isoHop. It seems to be the only reliable way to up your IBUs. It is a bit expensive and you won't need much but could be fun to play with!

I like your style on the Special B, I use it plenty in my Barley Wine. Also, warrior has never let me down, have faith. I used 2 oz of warrior at 60 and 2 oz of cascade split up at 15 and 5 at 70 IBUs at an OG of 1.112. The hops are noticeable and pronounced but not over bearing, the brew came out as a balanced AMERICAN Barley Wine. I think you should have a similar situation. If you really have to up your IBUs then when you do your sugar addition, boil some hops in the water with the sugar to get some bitterness out of them. Doing obscene amounts of dry hopping probably wouldn't have the desired effect.

Maybe you're right. I don't normally like sweet beers, but I have to admit that the sweetness in 'Old Foghorn' is a really nice match to a Christmas Barleywine. DrinkinSurfer, did you find your American Barley Wine to be more sweet than BigFoot, or on par with Old Foghorn? That isohop is no joke at $27, but it would be fun to play with.

I have not had either of those brews recently enough to make a comparison. I have had Stone's Old Guardian(the 2010 and 2009) pretty recently though, and that comes in at 95 IBUs at just over 11% ABV. The Old Guardian does have some more bitterness than mine, but I wouldn't call 70 IBUs sweet. My FG was a little high at 1.031 and with all of that residual sugar the brew still comes across a bit on the hoppy side of balanced. Not a hop bomb by any means at that FG and ABV but 70 IBUs it still a significant amount of IBUs.
I think you will be pleased with it regardless of the route you take. Just also consider your grain bill, you put effort into having a complex malt profile and that should be given a chance to shine as well.

DrinkinSurfer said:

I have not had either of those brews recently enough to make a comparison. I have had Stone's Old Guardian(the 2010 and 2009) pretty recently though, and that comes in at 95 IBUs at just over 11% ABV. The Old Guardian does have some more bitterness than mine, but I wouldn't call 70 IBUs sweet. My FG was a little high at 1.031 and with all of that residual sugar the brew still comes across a bit on the hoppy side of balanced. Not a hop bomb by any means at that FG and ABV but 70 IBUs it still a significant amount of IBUs.
I think you will be pleased with it regardless of the route you take. Just also consider your grain bill, you put effort into having a complex malt profile and that should be given a chance to shine as well.

Click to expand...

I found this chart somewhere and extended it out in photoshop to cover higher gravitys.

It puts our beers right in the middle of the 'slightly hoppy' category, which of course is more hoppy than a 'balanced' beer. Interesting. I'm starting to think you're right and I should just chill out, and enjoy what develops.

Are you suggesting that more hops might conceal the malt profile if my beer moves from the 'slightly' hoppy to the 'extra' hoppy category.

I think that massive amounts of dry hopping would at least partially mask the malt profile, as would adding IBUs via hop tea or isohop. I am not saying that beers that are considered extra hoppy don't have a malt profile, just that the emphasis is put on the hop profile. From what you have said about what you want in a beer (at least my take on it) is that you will be very pleased with your brew as it is. It won't be cloying, but will have a holiday warmth to it spiced up with a quite fair amount of IBUs. This also doesn't mean you can't split the batch and go wild with hops with half of it!

On bigger beers, keep in mind that your utilization will probably be pretty bad. My barley wine might calc out to 120 ibus, but in reality I'm guessing it is probably only around 70 ibus due to the high gravity wort.

wonderbread23 said:

On bigger beers, keep in mind that your utilization will probably be pretty bad. My barley wine might calc out to 120 ibus, but in reality I'm guessing it is probably only around 70 ibus due to the high gravity wort.

Click to expand...

My recipe posted on the first page is from Beersmith. It automatically adjusts IBUs for the gravity. Your dead on. With the same hops additions, if this were only a 1.057 brew the IBUs get adjusted to 117! When you say utilization, are you referring to how much the alpha acids are utilized? Can anyone explain why that is? Is there a chemical explination, or is it just a subjective taste thing?

Here's what happened so far: It's crazy how much the flavor has changed with every tasting.


Day1: 1.111 (1.119 after late addition of sugar predicted)
Day2: 1.070
Day4: 1.038 no sweet taste, no coffe flavor from roasted barley, but slight acrid taste.
Day5: 1.034 no caremel flavor yet, very bitter, overwhelming alcohol taste, +1lbs sugar (should bump OG from 1.111 to 1.119= 12.3%!!! ABV)

Today-
Day9: 1.026 (predicted FG was 1.030) Caremel flavor coming through now, acrid roasted taste almost gone, hops now taste very balanced with a soft warm sweetness similar to old foghorn. The alcohol makes it's presence known but without the burn of Bigfoot Ale. Color is exactly like caremel. Whiskey/medium toast French Oak chip and cascade dry hopping to follow in secondary. This is the first day that the airlock hasn't been very active. I think it's going to be a great beer!

Update: Day 14

It's been 2 weeks in the primary. Went to secondary and added 2 oz. of whole leaf Cluster Hops (Fresh from harvest per Brooklyn Homebrew. I even scored some Sarachi yesterday!). My Cascade still isn't ready for harvest

FG is now 1.025, Holy Attenuation Batman!

Acrid taste is already gone and it is Soooooo drinkable. Very lite body even though it looks thick in the glass like wine. The bitterness doesn't seem strong at all until you are done with the glass. Then you get a little burst for a few seconds of bitterness on your tongue. It has the mouthfeel of sweet (like Old Foghorn), but doesn't taste sweet if that makes sense. Just on the hoppy side of balanced Though the alcohol smell is strong, the burn isn't. The two ounces of finishing hops (one golding, one norther brewer) really are coming through in the aroma.

It's going to dry hop for a week, and there's also some whiskey soaked, med. toast, french oak in there too. I'm going to bottle in a week with champagne yeast. It's going to be gooood.