Dry Hopping with Saaz

There are threads on dry hopping with Saaz, but most of them deal with including it in American style brews.

I have a Belgian Pale Ale in primary, hopped with three ounces of Saaz. I accidentally bought an extra ounce of 2.5%AA Saaz hops that I don't foresee using anytime soon.

Does anyone have experience dry hopping a Belgian Ale or Golden with Saaz?

saaz has a really delicate flavor, and at that aa, it would be very mild anyway, so it might just be pretty tasty

Thanks. I've heard Saaz can give some grassy flavors when dry-hopped, but this was in IPAs and probably at higher quantities than I'm looking at doing.

I've been curious about this myself. Give it a go and please update with the results.

A buddy of mine that worked in a brewery in the Czech republic told me that a lot of Czech brewers dry hop their pilseners... Granted, Czech pilsener is different beer than the ones you mention, but then again it would be more sensitive to off flavors... I think you would be happy with the results if you try it

From what I understand Brouwerij Contrera's Valeir Divers is dry-hopped with Saaz. I think it's an excellent blond/tripel/Belgian Strong Golden Ale that strikes a nice balance between its candy sugar and the grassy hop profile.

I dry hopped all my belgians with saaz...but I have slowly realized that I am a hop head. Its subtle but if you really think about the proper conditioning time for a belgian, the flavors will have dissapated by the time you drink them. The only time I could taste the effect was if I drank them within 6-8 weeks, and even then it was minimal. Nonetheless, I will continue to dry hop them if and when I brew belgians again

Thanks guys! I'll be putting the hops in today - I'll let you know how it turns out.

JeffersonJ, it's been over a month. Any word on how the Saaz dry hopping turned out?

My buddy does a Wheat Pale w/Saaz dry-hop and it's incredible. Do it, you won't be disappointed.

I too am looking for guidance on an "upper limit" for dry-hopping with Saaz.

I've been sitting on about 2 lbs of Saaz pellets and due to the low AA, I've been afraid to use large amounts of them in any recipes. I'd hate the grassy/vegetal flavors from using large volumes of hops to outweigh that delicate floral Saaz flavor and aroma we all love so much.

I'm particularly interested in using them as a light aroma accent in a large batch of Belgian Wit which would be drunk young (maybe 8 weeks).

KEG99 said:

JeffersonJ, it's been over a month. Any word on how the Saaz dry hopping turned out?

Click to expand...

Well, long story. I ended up having to dry hop for a couple weeks because fermentation kicked back up after adding the hops to primary - ended up dropping the FG a few points.

But, that being said, the beer is excellent. I think the prolonged dry hopping provided a bit of earthy flavor, but it's not "grassy" at all. It is a bit peppery too, more than would be expected from the mild Belgian yeast (WLP515). Aroma is great - flowery, spicy, earthy - but since it's a Belgian I suspect much of the aroma is coming from the yeast.