Impact of static dry-hopping rate on the sensory and analytical profiles of beer

Dry-hopping is a technique that has been used by brewers to increase the hop aroma and flavour of beer for centuries. Throughout the twenty first century, dry-hopping has become an increasingly popular method among craft brewers to impart intense hoppy aroma and flavour to beer. Many US craft brewers use extremely high dry-hop dosing rates of up to 2200 g/hL and this is both unsustainable and potentially wasteful. This study examines the impact of dry-hopping rate on the sensorial and analytical characteristics of dry-hopped beers. An unhopped pale beer was statically dry-hopped with whole cone Cascade from the 2015 harvest over a broad range of dry-hopping rates (200-1600 g/hL) in replicated, pilot scale (80 L) aliquots. Trained panellists using descriptive analysis scaled the overall and qualitative hop aroma intensity of these beers, as well as the unhopped base beer. Instrumental analysis was used to measure the levels of hop volatile and non-volatile extraction between the treatments. The relationship between dry-hopping rate and the sensorial and analytical characteristics of the finished beer was not linear and, based on the extraction efficiencies of select hop volatiles, had an ideal range between 400 and 800 g/hL. (C) 2018 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling