a Hops question

[DrifterFred]

is there are "general" bitterness range for different styles of beer?...I know it is mainly personal preference, as a home brewer you can tweek recipes to your own taste... but I prefer lower hop bitterness beers and as a nube I'm trying to gauge what range of hop bitterness is my favorite...Sam Adams I would consider high hoppiness top of my range and Bass ale low hoppiness...so what range of bitterness am i looking for?

 

[tom9d]

You can find guidelines for different styles here:

http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php

It includes bitterness and other characteristics. There are plenty of styles with low bitterness. Here's a helpful chart that gives you an idea of how different styles compare to one another in terms of bitterness:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/01/24/beer-styles-ibu-chart-graph-bitterness-range/

 

[homebrewdad]

The problem with looking at IBUs by themselves is that they don't tell the whole story. You need to look at the ratio of hops to the OG of the beer, which will help you figure out how balanced the beer is... but even then, there are variables.

By and large, though, a lighter beer might taste much hoppier than a big beer with much higher IBUs, since the big beer has way more sugars in it to balance. Make sense?

 

[frazier]

Google up the BJCP style guidelines - I'm pretty sure they're stickied here somewhere...

A lot of styles can be made either hoppy or malty - American Amber Ale for one. So make it how you like it!

Other low-hop styles, off the top of my head - English Mild, Scottish Ale, Irish Red, practically any pilsner or lager, wheat beers, Cream Sout, etc etc etc.

Cheers!

 

[DrifterFred]

thanks for the responses...how do i calculate the bitterness range of the finished product?..do I just add up the IBU on the packets of hops?

 

[homebrewdad]

thanks for the responses...how do i calculate the bitterness range of the finished product?..do I just add up the IBU on the packets of hops?

There are online calculators for this. It can be a complicated formula, which takes into consideration the alpha acids in your hops, the amount of water they are boiled in, and the length of boil.

For instance, in my last recipe, I added .5 oz of Williamette (4.0% alpha) at 60 minutes - this gave me 5.5 IBUs. I added another .5 oz at 30 minutes; this gave me more flavor, but only 4.2 IBUs.

Do yourself a favor. If you are creating recipes, go download BeerSmith. It's free for the first month or so, and only $20ish bucks as a one time fee after your trial. It handles the math so you don't have to. It evencomes preloaded with the various style guidelines, and some helpful indicators to show how well your beer falls within the style.

 

[DrifterFred]

thanks...not at the creating my own recipes just yet...only 2 batched under my belt...just trying to figure out from a recipe provided with a kit, if the beer will be hoppy or milder...thanks

 

[frazier]

Try going to Hopville.com, and using their Brew Calculus program. It's a free online recipe program; enter the ingredients, volume, hops and boil times, etc. It will tell you the starting gravity (OG) and the IBUs; as well as giving a graphic slider-bar representation of Malty vs. Hoppy. There are other free online calculators as well; TastyBrew and Brewmaster's Warehouse both have them, among others.

In addition to learning a lot about the recipe you are using, you can try tweaking various ingredients and seeing the effect. Have fun!