Very Little Hop Flavour in a Hoppy Beer!

[David Woods]

Just brewed a batch of "Ger Er Brewed" Hop On APA which has a lot of hops in the package.

This brew went slightly wrong in that instead of throwing in the hops in the little bags they came in I used a very large mesh bag.

It turned out that my mesh bag was very very fine as I found out when trying to lift it out - it seemed as though nothing - not even the water was getting through easily. I eventually dumped the hops into the wort at flame out as I couldn't lift the bag out! - there were a lot of hops!

I fermented the beer and even added some dry hops - only about 40g of Cascade but the resulting beer has no taste or aroma of hops at all!

I have already decided to just throw hops in the boil from now on but would this very fine mesh bag have caused the flavour to be missing? This was supposed to be one of their hoppiest recipes so interested to hear some comments on what may have gone wrong here.

The beer is fine - quite bitter, in fact a nice English bitter but with no sign of hops. This was also my first brew using gelatin in the keg and I am very impressed with the clarity so the way to go for me. Luckily don't know any vegan drinkers!

 

[Buffers brewery]

What were the hop timings? I stopped adding hops early in the boil as it resulted in a bitter not hoppy beer.

 

[David Woods]

I followed the timings supplied by Geterbrewed - 60, 10, 0 exactly. Think the early hops are just for bittering only.

 

[The Baron]

What are the hops in the original recipe and how much?

 

[David Woods]

Hops were:
30g Aurora 60 mins

30g Cascade 10 mins
30g Centennial 10 mins

30g Amarillo 0 mins
30g Chinook 0 mins

40g Cascade dry hop (my addition)

 

[Buffers brewery]

Hop schedule looks fine. If I were brewing this beer I’d delay adding the Aurora hops to 30 mins as this is what’s providing the bitterness. Also, you could try adding the 0 mins hops when the boiled wort has cooled to 80C.

 

[The Baron]

Also be aware dry hopping does add bitterness/perceived bitterness.
I too would drop the bitterness hops down the list timewise and do a sub 80c whirlpool instead of a flame out, this will give more flavour with less bitterness