IBU questions

With 3 batches under my belt, I am very new to all this. But I do know what kind of beers I like!

I am a big fan of ales, any dark beers and anything with a lot of wheat. And that is good, because the weeks of 100+ weather here in TX do not allow me to lager anyway (for now - I am working on keezering soon)

Anyway, here are my questions.

a, how do I determine how much IBUs a store bought beer has?
b, how do I raise or lower IBUs of a certain recipe? ( I made a quick, yet great American Ale, but it is a bit too hoppy at the end)
c, am I right that the initial hops added influence the general bitterness of the beer and the finishing hops influence the aftertaste?

Thanks for your answers! Thanks to this board I am brewing in the first place, and getting better at it......

a - look on company website
b - use brewing software, even the free online stuff will work
c - yes, but I think that the overall bitterness from the early hops effect how you taste and perceive the following hop additions. It is all an interrelated dance that goes on and that's why some brewers create magic and others make swill.

thanks for the answer, samc - I guess I am trying to figure out how to put a (IBU) number to my taste....

Reinheitsgebot said:

thanks for the answer, samc - I guess I am trying to figure out how to put a (IBU) number to my taste....

Click to expand...

Well, that's almost impossible. Some beers taste underhopped at 50 IBUs while some are overhopped so it's not like you can say, "I like my beers at 50 IBUs". It really is all about balance. A bigger malt bill needs more IBUs to not be sweet. It's not the amount of a certain measurement that tastes a certain way in that case.

You may want to consider the OG/SG ratio instead. That's a much better prediction of the balance of the beer. You can say, "Well, I like most beers at a .800 ratio" and that is more realistic of the flavor (bitterness) you'll get. Ray Daniels, in Designing Great Beers, talks alot about that, and there is a calculation for it in Beersmith.

+1 on the OG/SG ratio. That's much more relevant to what you're talking about.

Also, different formulas are used to calculate IBUs. Depending on the hopping schedule and recipe, these formulas can cause a recipe's calculated IBUs to be different by 5 or 10 points.

a - websites
b - brewing software
c - yes, but 'aftertaste' is bad term (mostly because it was invented by marketers who claimed "no aftertaste" in crappy beers that are actual tasteless). Bitterness tends to linger, so you'll get that from initial hop additions. Later hops additions had more flavour and aroma, so more 'hop character', but they add less bitterness.