Predicting the results of hop blending on final beer flavour/aroma using analytical and sensory methods

Project team: Javier Gomez-Lopez
Member funded project
Running: January 2015 – December 2017
Steering MIG: Brewing and fermented alcoholic beverages
Project number: 135194
Proposal documentation

Most brewers use a limited number of hops to deliver the bitterness and flavour/aroma profiles required in their beers, often only one or two hop varieties per brand. However, in recent years the continual development of new hop varietal strains has encouraged many to explore further than their existing limited portfolio to develop new products. This has been especially true with the explosion in the craft brewing sector. One of the biggest trends in the craft sector is dry, or late, hopping, which results in beers with very complex and robust hop flavour/aroma characteristics, but not necessarily with the bitterness associated with traditional hopping during wort boiling. Much of this beer product development has been done through relatively unsophisticated and iterative processes and the blending of hops is considered to be an art rather than a science. This project will investigate the feasibility of brewers being able to predict the flavour/aroma characteristics of a beer using any blend of hop varieties in order to produce beers with exactly the sensory profile being targeted.