Page 48 - Beverage Master February March 2020

Craft Ag Production

HOP SENSORY:

Benefit to Growers & Brewers

Beer Sensory in a Hop Context
J ust because something is fun to do, Beer sensory is important to the industry, but it’s
doesn’t mean there isn’t a robust sci-
ence involved. Case in point: beer sen-
sory. My relatives like to joke that they
also studied beer sensory in college, but far too time consuming and resource intensive to
assess every lot of hops during harvest this way.
I think the readers will be aware of the difference Enter: hop sensory. The process of gathering and
between running a carefully randomized tetrad test training panelists is similar to that of beer sensory,
and doing a keg stand on a football player’s front but the results are produced a lot faster; thousands
porch. To properly conduct the science of beer of samples can be assessed within a harvest period.
sensory, you start by finding 16-or-so willing partic- This allows for ruined harvest lots to be eliminated
ipants (shouldn’t be difficult) to undergo rigorous from the get-go before expensive resources go into
beer flavor training and validation. Through this processing them. Hop sensory produces a clear
training and validation, you ensure that everyone snapshot of different varieties from different grow-
is speaking the same flavor language, describing ers, harvested on different days, so that brewers
specific flavor-active compounds in agreed-upon participating in hop selection can get exactly the
terms. product they’re looking for each crop year. Using
this data, we can reveal how the sensory character-
While technology has come a long way in helping istics of each variety are evolving over time.
us describe the chemical reactions taking place on
brew day, quantitative data from analytical equip- However, due to thousands of reactions that take
ment falls short in describing the sensory experi- place during brewing, the key aromatic compounds
ence of drinking a given beer – good news for your identified in hops have undergone many changes
16-or-so panelists. The human nose is capable of by the time they make it into the final product, if
detecting millions of aromas, and more important- they even make it at all. When brewing, hop com-
ly, humans are capable of linking these aromas to pounds are modified by thermal reactions, yeast
incredibly specific real-world objects like guavas or biotransformation, chemical conversions such as
jasmine flowers. It’s an impressive feat, and in this oxidation/reduction, hydrolysis, isomerization,
particular battle of Human vs Machine, we’re win- ester exchange, and even evaporation. During fer-
ning. mentation, for example, yeast metabolic activity

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