High Gravity + Hop Late Additions = Really Necessary?

[Andrikos]

Assume that I brew a high gravity ale (say a RIS) that I will age until next winter (6+ months).

By personal experience, and from literature, I know that hop bitterness and aromatics dissipate with aging (accelerated by temperature and a few other secondary factors). By all accounts hop aroma dissipates faster than bitterness.

I'm getting ready to brew a RIS this weekend and I'm looking at recipes including Jamil's from BCS and it calls for 10 minute and 1 minute additions and it makes me wonder if it's really necessary and/or efficient use of hops for a beer that will be aged for months/years.

I was planning to FWH 90 minute 100 IBUs of Polaris hops (a scant 55 grams) and skip the late additions. By the time the beer is ready to be drunk, the bitterness should subside to BJCP levels (50-90 IBUs)

Would you add the late hop additions, and why?
Is there something I'm missing here?
Any thoughts?

 

[Andrikos]

No feedback?
Nothing?
Nobody?
Anybody?

 

[Effingbeer]

I think the idea is to "overdo it" so that in a year, there will be some hoppy goodness.

 

[billl]

Dissipate does not equal disappear.

 

[Andrikos]

Thanks for the replies.
Point taken.

I went ahead and added 15g of Amarillo at 15mins and 15g of Citra at 1min on top of the Polaris bittering hops (2 hour boil!).

I'll have to say, it does smell amazing as it happily ferments at 16C (~61F). The hop smell along with the sweet smell of all the specialty malts is pretty intoxicating!

 

[tyll-matic]

If you're doing a secondary, and especially if you're bottling, be very wary of introducing oxygen into the beer. Oxygen is definitely the enemy of long-term hop flavor stability post-fermentation. So regarding your question, this means that to make the most of those additions, you should be careful transferring the beer and with other vectors which introduce O2. I hope it all turns out well for you.