Flavouring hops only

[Hauger]

Quick and probably silly question. I'm new to brewing and All grain in specific. I've brewed 4 batches so far (curious how the latest batch will turn out, messed up the strike temp calculation and the result was a mash WAY too hot for about 10 minutes or so).

So far I'm mostly happy with my results. The brew taste great and makes drinking a BMC rather hard. If I wanted to make a low hop beer though, what does the forum think the taste would be if I brewed a batch of Ed's Haus Pale Ale but didn't do the bittering Hops, only adding Hops at the 15 minute and 5 minute timeframe. Would it come out too malty? Chances are I'll spend the $20 and the couple hours to brew a test batch like that, but I'm just curious what the forums would think.

 

[helibrewer]

Not familiar with the recipe but American pale ales generally have a good hop backbone. A great low hop style is a Kolsch (German Ale - fermented cool).

Also, the English Pale Ales (bitters) are generally maltier than what we do over here in the Colonies...maybe look at a bitter, or special bitter recipe.

And there's always Belgian Pale Ales

 

[Hauger]

Thanks for the feedback. The recipe in question is a popular one on the forum (and quite good as is): https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/.

My question isn't really recipe specific. It's more to gauge what it would taste like if someone omitted the bittering hops and went with just the flavouring, late boil hop additions. Having said that, I'll look at the styles you offered up.

 

[TopherM]

Bittering hops are meant to balance the malt character of any given beer. In a Pale Ale style, the bittering is typically showcased more than the malt character of the beer on purpose.

If you take out the bittering hops altogether, you are going to eliminate about 60-70% of your hop character/IBUs in the beer. You would be taking a style that is defined by the presence of hop character and showcasing the malt character instead.

If you just don't particularly like hop bitterness, then I would just stay away from the Pale Ale/IPA style altogether, not try to eliminate the defining characteristic of the style.

At worst, cut the bitter hop addition in 1/2 if you want a lightly hopped Pale Ale, but don't eliminate it altogether.

I think that recipe with no bittering hop would basically taste like alcoholic sugar water with a nice hop smell.

Experiment if you want, but I don't think you are going to like the result. Again, if you want to do this just because you are not fond of hop bitterness, migrate to a different style that is defined by low hop bitterness, like traditional wheats, hefeweizens, kolsch, lagers, etc. Here's a good chart to show you the "to-style" IBUs for different beer styles:

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

 

[sweetcell]

cut the bitter hop addition in 1/2 if you want a lightly hopped pale ale, but don't eliminate it altogether.

+1.

 

[Hauger]

Thanks for the answers...personally I like the taste of hops, so the question was more related to experimenting...playing around with different aspects to learn what results they produce.

Might still try a batch, just for "science" sake.

 

[bigbeergeek]

If you omit the bittering hops as an experiment, brew a half batch. Add bittering hops to the other half to see what "hop bitterness" is all about in pale ales. I'll (also) second cutting the bittering addition in half if you want less bitterness.

 

[mlyday]

I did a batch of a cream ale where I only did the late additions, but upped the amounts of those additions (20 and 10 minutes) to make up for the ibu's lost with no bittering addition. It was dirinkable but not very good. Pretty one dimensional. I wouldnt do it again, but dont let that stop you.

Google All late addition hops. Others have done it.

 

[Hackwood]

+1 for English Bitters.

I wandered the same as I don't care for IPAs too much. Stumbled upon an English Bitter recipe and made a "test" batch. To date it has been one of my favorite beers so this past weekend I brewed a 10 gallon batch. Try an English Bitter and see what you think. GL