Beersaturday? Hello again! Cryo beers under attack!
You ever heard of cryo hops? And especially beers, brewed with cryo hops?
Yup, these are strongly attacking the market. Cryo hops are actually an extract, or maybe it’s better to say isolation of the lupulin, which is present in the hop heads and is entirely responsible for the great flavors, that hops give to our beloved beverage.
During the last couple of months, these hops are strongly hitting the market, and of course a lot of craft breweries start to use this product. It’s advantage? Well, with minimum amounts of product, you manage to achieve a great and strong flavor, without the flaw of sometimes getting grassy aromas and flavors in the beer.
I was really excited after I saw a campaign of a commercial shop trademark (LIDL) promoting some Bulgarian craft breweries. Okay, the beer from my #beersaturday post may not b ebrewed in Bulgaria, but it is made, using these cryo hops. And the price was about $2 for a 330 bottle, which is absolutely amazing for a beer like this.
This one is a CRYO IPA, which uses Mosaic cryo hops and American yeast.
After pouring in the glass, you can immediately note the heavy tropical and fruity notes of the beer, but although it says 44 IBU on the bottle, the bitterness is much more pronounced and a bit too high in my opinion. I would say it goes above 60-70, which of course may be due the use of cryo hops.
Another thing I didn’t like at all about this beer is that it is a single hop one. For a pale ale, maybe it would fit perfectly, but for an IPA, I expect more complexity of the flavor. For instance Stone IPA is the most amazing classical west coast IPA and it hosts a whole world of different aromas. And this one, somehow flat.
The thing, that this beer lacks is definitely a bit balance... Bitterness, complexity of flavor, body. Overall it’s really a great one and the product is absolutely nice and tasty. And finding the beers for this price is... well... priceless.
Another cryo hopped beer is coming in my next review, so stay tuned. And enjoy a nice beer in the company of #beersaturday and @detlev of course!
Cheers, mates!
I had never heard of cryo-hops! Thank you for a bit of education.
So they extract just the lupulin from the hops and use it as an ingredient in the beer?
I think that's exactly what they do. You exclude some of the drawbacks of using whole hops or hop pelletes by using the cryo hops.
Cheers!
Cheers! Now I want to try one! I'll have to settle for Yuengling until I finish this six pack....
Thanks for the lesson about Cryo hops.. very interesting.. Sláinte my friend
You're always welcome, mate!
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
Hi mdosev,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Congratulations @mdosev! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCongratulations @mdosev! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPBeer making is quite an art. I grow hops in my landscape with the idea that I could use them for medicinal purposes, for anxiety, treating insomnia. Very relaxing and relieves tension. It's pretty wild the developments of the extracts to be able to tweak your tastes even more.
Using hops for medicinal purposes seems quite exciting. We all know the great properties, that they add to the beer, but they surely can be very helpful to the humankind even out of the beers. I'm very interested in the stuff you deal with and will try to stay in touch.
Thanks for the comment!
Your welcome!
I have never heard of cryo hops, it seems like a great hop. The label looks very interesting!! Nice review!!
Actually the label has some Bulgarian folklore motives in it, which are stylized and look very good!
With a bitterness that high was it more of a dark lager taste without the body and coloring?
Hops bitterness has nothing to do with malt roasty character. No point for comparison here. 😉
lol, I've often found a lot of the lager's slightly bitter, but I can see your point. What country is that beer from? RU?
You know what would be cool, a weekly series where you do like the wine guru's and pair a beer with some suggested meals. Like mixing a woodsy bitter beer with sweet BBQ ribs and grilled zucchini. lol it could be funny and engaging at the same time.
You are right about the beers and food pairings.
This beer is from Bulgaria, but actually it's not brewed in Bulgaria, but in the Netherlands I think. There is a trend that some Bulgarian craft brewers make their batches in bigger European countries and after that import their products in Bulgaria.