Isomerized Alpha Extract

[grammatron]

Howdy folks, I used to post here like 10 years ago, fell out of the hobby for a while, and am now in the Applied Craft Brewing program at Regis University. I'm working on a final project for one of my classes, and I had a disastrous brew day. Long story short, I had a boilover right after I added my hops, and as a result, I lost a *lot* of them right at the beginning of the boil. A week into fermentation, and the sample I tasted yesterday isn't terrible, but it's definitely lacking from the hop loss. I've gotta give this beer to roughly 20 other people in class, and I'd prefer it to not be terrible (even though the quality of the finished beer isn't really going to affect my grade or anything).

I was wondering if anyone has any experience w/ Isomerized Alpha Extract. I did a search and only found one reference to it here on the board. But I feel like it might be the solution to my problem.

I thought about just dry hopping, but I don't think it's gonna help much in the overall bitterness. I've neer done a hop tea addition, but my impression is that it's more for aroma than bitterness too. So what do you guys think? Is the alpha extract the way to go?

 

[Vale71]

It's not a solution, it's the only solution but unfortunately it's not the best one.

You can dose it very accurately but the bitterness is rather "bland". Exactly what you'd expect from a commercial mass-produced beer that was probably brewed with this kind of extract if it was brewed in a country that allows it.

Friendly advice: don't try and taste the extract unles diluted to its final concentration. It's unbearably bitter and the experiment might end with you throwing up (ask me how I know).

 

[grammatron]

Yeah I know it wouldn't be ideal and it's not going to produce the best beer or anything, but I figure it would get me closer to what I was aiming for at least. Am I correct that doing a hop tea is pretty much only going to add aroma?