Alpha and Beta?

[foley178]

Looking into getting into AG someday and make my own custom brews. I currently only shop at NB and I was noticing they don't have much beta hops. Can someone help me with a good hops explaination along with helpful advice when to use which one and how to calculate this? Thanks for all the responses I'm sure to get for being a noob lol

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

I'm not an expert on hops but the basics are that you will find alpha acids (AA) and beta reported for all hops. Alpha is the primary bittering component and beta is sort of the "second string" bittering component. They are not 2 different types of hops. You really only need to pay attention to the alpha when figuring IBUs.

 

[foley178]

Ok good know

 

[daksin]

Yup- all hops have both alph and beta acids, but you only need to worry about alpha acids for calculating bitterness.