Author: Marshall Schott

I think some have misinterpreted the fact I don’t homebrew IPA very much as meaning I don’t appreciate and enjoy the style. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is, I drink IPA all the time, it’s impossible to avoid these days, I just don’t brew it very often for myriad reasons– there are plenty of delicious commercial examples available, most of the dudes I hangout with brew enough for me to get my fix, and honestly, they require quite the financial investment. Hops are fucking expensive, especially the varieties we all pine to liberally dose our homemade beers with. When I do make an IPA, at least one of my own design and not a shitty clone version of a delicious commercial example (shut up, guys), my goal is to suck as much tropical/citrusy/fruity/danky/piney/whatever character out of the hops as possible, a goal I trust is shared among all hopheads. A common method we’ve all adopted that helps to achieve this involves adding a charge of hops, usually 2+ ounces per 5 gallon batch, toward the end of fermentation and allowing them to sit in the beer for a certain length of time to extract all of those delectable aromatic oils– the dry hop. If ever the beer gods gifted brewers with a kernel of knowledge worthy of exaltation, this would have to be it.

As the popularity of hop forward styles has grown, so too has our interest in better understanding how to utilize this precious flower. Over the years, I’ve heard many hop experts discuss various dry hopping methods, one of which caught my attention in particular. A couple years ago, I was listening to an interview with a commercial brewer, I forget who it was, but my ears perked up as he began discussing a technique he regularly used to achieve a stronger dry hop character. Rather than making a single large dry hop addition, this brewer was divvying up his hops and adding them a few days apart, a practice he said had a noticeably positive impact on his finished product. Simple as this sounded, I decided to give it a shot, and bada-bing bada-boom, A Lil’ Slack IPA was born. Even at a couple months old, this beer took second place in a BJCP sanctioned competition, both judges commenting on the pleasant hop aroma. It was enough to convince me the double dry hop method worked.

Then the annoyingly skeptical part of my brain kicked in and I began to wonder if the beer might have tasted the same had I dumped in the same amount of hops in a single huge addition. I ignored that tiny pestering voice in my head for a couple years and continued to double-dose my IPAs, each time convincing myself I could tell a difference, that my IPAs were better because of this modern method. It wasn’t until a group of buddies decided to go head-to-head in a House of Pendragon Lancelot IPA clone challenge that I decided to put this theory to the test. You see, I’m not a very competitive person, but if something as simple as splitting up a dry hop addition would better my chances, hey, why not?

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between the same beer receiving either a single or double dry hop charge.

| METHOD |

As I mentioned before, I was tasked with making a “clone” of a local favorite, Lancelot IPA (Untappd), which would later be blindly compared to versions made by 6 friends as well as the real deal. A couple days prior to brewing, I made a starter of the yeast Tommy was using for this beer, an old favorite of mine, WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast.

After a couple days, I stole a quart of this yeasty goodness for future use then threw the flask in the fridge to crash overnight. I was all mashed in by 4:30AM the following morning.

Since this would be a 6 gallon split batch, I chose to go with the no sparge method since my MLT would hold the entire volume of grist and brewing liquor.

After an hour long mash that included 3 brief stirs, I collected the very pale sweet wort.

Once the wort was added to the kettle and the flame turned on, it was time to weigh out the hops. This particular recipe called for only 2 additions, a relatively small amount of Magnum at 60 minutes and a rather large flameout/hopstand addition of multiple varieties.

This hopping schedule made for a really relaxed brew day, I almost forgot to toss my immersion chiller in the boiling wort with 15 minutes left to go. Once the boil was complete, I quickly chilled the wort to 66°F, my target fermentation temp, and racked 3 gallons into separate PET carboys, gently stirring to ensure equal distribution of kettle trub.

The fermentors were then placed in a cool fermentation chamber, the decanted starter was evenly split between the carboys, and I engaged my standard ale profile on The Block Box temp controller. Things were rocking and rolling less than 24 hours later.

The first dry hops were added 5 days into fermentation when both beers were showing signs of diminished activity. The single dry hop batch was hit with the entire 5 oz charge of hops, while the double dry hop batch received exactly half the amount of each hop. I returned 2 days later and added the other half of the hops to the double dry hop carboy. The beers were left for an additional 2 days before being crashed, fined with gelatin, and racked into their own 3 gallon kegs. After a few days on gas in the keezer, the beers were clear, carbonated, and ready for testing!

| RESULTS |

Over the course of an 18 hour period, I was able to get 15 people to participate in this xBmt including 4 BJCP provisional judges, 4 Cicerone Certified Beer Servers, a professional brewer, and a grip of other experienced craft beer drinkers and/or homebrewers. Given this sample size, 9 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to correctly select the different beer to reach a level of statistical significance. Each taster was served 2 single dry hopped samples and 1 sample from the double dry hopped batch in a relatively secluded environment. Of the 15 participants, only 4 accurately distinguished the double dry hopped beer from the single dry hopped sample, a number that falls below even that which we might expect if tasters made their decisions randomly. Statistically, the responses of those 4 who were correct in the triangle test on the subsequent comparative evaluation are meaningless, which seems about right as their responses were far from consistent. Either way, since dry hopping is typically regarded as a method to impact the aromatic qualities of beer, I figured some might be interested to know that 3 of the correct respondents believed the aroma of the beers were somewhat similar while the other participant felt they were exactly the same.

My Impressions: Biased though I was, I couldn’t tell a lick of difference between these 2 beers. I tried my hand at multiple quasi-blind triangle tests as well as more simple side-by-side comparisons and, even knowing the nature of the xBmt, I couldn’t reliably pick out the differences. Aroma, flavor, mouthfeel– all the same to me.

| DISCUSSION |

Alright, so maybe the whole double dry hop thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe there’s nothing magical that happens by adding hops in multiple doses a few days apart. Maybe those who have claimed to notice a difference (me) are deluded. Maybe.

But maybe not.

The credulous idealist side of me is at odds with the more pragmatic empiricist in me– I want so badly to believe the qualitative differences experienced by others and myself are real, yet the numbers and my own recent impressions just don’t add up, leaving me with an odd feeling that falls somewhere between disharmonious confusion and slight satisfaction. I mean, I wouldn’t mind ditching the extra dry hop step, it does require some planning (and remembering). Yet, as I sit here pondering, I find myself feeling the urge to minimize the results of this xBmt and blame them on poor design, methodical limitations, and the terrible palates of the participants. Then again… that’s just ridiculous.

I say it often, but perhaps this is yet another variable that makes more of a difference on the commercial scale than it does for homebrewers. I’m constantly preaching the perils of blindly accepting the results of these xBmts as fact and using them as an excuse to adopt potentially bad practices. Nothing is different here, this remains a single point of data, not nearly enough to comfortably settle into the couch of absolutism. But really, if I’m being totally honest, outside of any future xBmts on this topic, I’ll be making only a single trip to my carboys for dry hop additions from now on, if for no other reason than the fact it’s just simpler.

I know I’m not the only one who’s done a comparison like this and I’m deathly curious what others have experienced. Whether you’re a die-hard double dry hopper or single dry hopper for life, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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