hop tolerance - does your sensitivity to hops decrease after drinking a lot of ipas

[fluketamer]

do you build up a tolerance to hop oils like you build a tolerance to everything else?

6 months ago when i started making really hoppy ales they seemed more hoppy even though they had less hops in them. i thought it was my hops or maybe something in my process, but i think its my palate. my buddies are still saying the beers are very hoppy but i am always thinking i should have added another ounce of ________(fill in the blank) . i think we have had this discussion too before but anyone else notice they dull there palate after a while by drinking very hoppy ales?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

I love ipas, most of what I drink are heavily hopped beers... but I also enjoy plenty of other styles as well, I'm brewing an oyster stout this weekend for instance... I think your palate may adjust to it a little sure. I do think that when I'm sharing beers I try to have them taste the ipas last because some of them are what I call palate crushers, meaning after you drink one you might not get the full flavor of the other beers.. but from one day to the next I don't know that overall sensitivity is decreased, I can still pick up hops in lightly hopped beers.

 

[Willy]

I sometimes wonder the same - changes over time? Tolerance or sensitivity?

For me, some hop styles are really "powerful" to me, like it don't take much. (Grapefruit forward hops as an example). Other hop styles - I can't get enough of. Saaz comes to mind - a 44 IBU on a lager is just delicious and not overpowering even though I use 4 oz in a 5 gal batch. Same with Cascade.... Never enough of it.

I'm guessing we all have different taste profiles, and yeah - it changes over time to. One always needs to adjust the target if you wanna hit your sweetest of sweet spots.

 

[day_trippr]

Look up "lupulin shift"...

 

[fluketamer]

no i am not saying that the beer degrades over time i am saying that i think my ability to detect the flavors is muted after drinking a lot of hoppy beers. it seems to have carried over into the craft beers as well. they dont seem as hoppy to me. and i have nothing to do with their "process." if it was oxidation then the keg would get less flavorful over time. . i am saying a fresh keg today tastes less hoppy than a fresh keg several months ago. even tho its the same recipe. although i guess without the ability to taste the two kegs side by side it may just be bias.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Look up "lupulin shift"...

This.

In the 90's, nothing was hoppy enough for me. I look back at my old recipes and just shake my head. These days I brew between 1-3 batches of hoppy N. American ale/year and they are solar flare-like in their intensity because I don't wear them into the ground.