A Single Hop Ale, Apropos of Nothing
Beer geeks love single hop brews. By drinking them, we can learn to identify a variety of hop and pick it out from a anew beer we’ve tasted. For homebrewers and professionals this is a valuable skill, as developing recipes is kind of what they do. For beer drinkers, it’s another feather in their cap. But I’m not going to talk about who drinks single hop ales and why, I’m going to talk about the single hop ales themselves and how they mean absolutely nothing.
Many breweries have single hop series as part of their offerings today. Each one proudly highlights Chinook, Zues, Simcoe, Citra or whatever designer hop may be popular that week. Rarely is a description given. It’s a single hop ale, what else would you need to know?
The idea behind single hop ales is simple: highlight a single hop. It’s the execution of a single hop ale with which I have an issue. If the goal is to highlight a single hop, how exactly are you doing it?
The base recipe is where we need to start. Typically, breweries will choose a base recipe of a pale ale or an IPA to showcase their hops. This base recipe will really only refer to the malt component because the hop component brings in numerous variables, which we will discuss in a moment. Depending on the brewer, you could be drinking a malty east coast IPA or a light bodied session pale. Again, you’ll rarely know as descriptions of these single hop ales are usually nonexistent.
The hops are really the confusing part of single hop ales. First you have to decide what philosophy you have behind a single hop ale. Are you planning on using a standardized recipe where the only change is the name of the hop? Maybe you use a standard recipe but multiply the hop additions by a certain factor to reach a standard IBU. What if your goal is to show off the strengths of a specific hop, this will require a completely different schedule of hop additions. Or, it could be a combination of both, highlight the hops strengths but be consistent in the IBU count or the dry weight of the hops.
Needless to say, this is far more than a typical server at a brewpub would know. Maybe I’m making things more complicated than they need to be. The fact remains, for a “style” that is aimed so squarely at the beer geeks and connoisseurs of the craft beer world, there is actually very little information out there provided by breweries.
In the end, I would hope brewers would express the goals of their single hop series more explicitly. Your casual craft beer drinkers won’t be that interested in these beers, or won’t read a description any way. So please, indulge the nerds, tell us more, give us the whole story so that these educational series of beers can be as completely educational as possible.
One Comment to “A Single Hop Ale, Apropos of Nothing”
Leave a Reply
Hey Mario,
Good article. I purchased the Sam Adams Latitude 48 Deconstructed 12-pack over the weekend. Each bottle included a short description of what the aromas and flavors the single hop were intended to provide, which I thought was nice. I agree, more breweries need to provide us beer geeks with this information.
Cheers,
Jay B.