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Video Tip: Knockout Hops with Enzymes Versus Dry Hopping

Alvarado Street cofounder and brewing director J.C. Hill explains some sensory and technical differences between dry hopping and using knockout hops boosted by exogenous enzymes.

J.C. Hill Dec 22, 2021 - 2 min read

Following the mantra, “Drink fresh, burp hops,” Alvarado Street Brewing in Monterey County, California, has established a strong reputation for brewing beautifully aromatic and highly drinkable IPAs and other beers. Its all-Mosaic top-seller Mai Tai PA has taken two golds, a silver, and a bronze medal home from the annual Great American Beer Festival—and the brewery’s only been around since 2014. Driving that success is an obsession with all the details of brewing, especially when it comes to maximizing and fine-tuning the hop aroma of IPAs.

In this 43-minute video course, Alvarado Street cofounder and brewing director J.C. Hill lays out the techniques and tips that he and his team follow to coax out that winning hop aroma and flavor, including:

  • the process and thinking behind large knockout-hop additions
  • how to harness biotransformation to unlock more hop aroma
  • using enzymes to activate more aromatic hop compounds
  • double dry hopping and other dry-hop techniques
  • adjusting dry hops to balance with knockout additions
  • the aroma advantages of spunding
  • how to control for hop creep
  • understanding and taking advantage of thiols
  • using other new hop-aroma products

And much more.

Want access to more video courses like this one? All of our subscriptions come with a 100-percent money-back guarantee. Get your All Access Subscription to tap into a library of more than 70 full courses on a diverse range of brewing topics. If you don’t love it, we’re happy to refund you.

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