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HOPS  FOR  HOME  BREW  BEER
 
Hops for home brew beer add flavour and bitterness as well as have a preservative action. Use of brewing hops can be traced back hundreds of years to Southern Germany where it was used to increase longevity of the brew. The practice was associated with the addition of other wild herbs for flavour and wild beer hops are still used.   The hop oils and resins acted as a natural steriliser or disinfectant against the presence of wild yeasts that could spoil the brew before the days of refrigeration and airtight sealing.
 
Hops for Bitterness
 
For your home made beer brewing, the main purpose of adding hops is to give bitterness to what would be a sweet liquid, as is beer wine without hops to balance the flavours. If you want to experiment and use herbs for flavour you could try a beer without hops recipe.

To learn how to brew your own beer, get this easy to follow report called "How To Brew Your Own Beer " 
 
 
Brew your own at home!
 
Climate for Growing Hops
  
Hops are best grown in cool temperate climates and the vines are related to the mulberry, elm and the nettle. There are beer hops farms in USA, Australia, Europe and other countries with similar climates. Flowers are produced only on female vines and come out in a cone shaped bunch and are bright green. When crushed and dried they give off a pungent aroma that is refreshing and thus we get hops for beer.
MR.BEER Deluxe Beer Kit Brewing System  
Chemistry
 
As with malts, the chemistry can be interesting for the home brewer as the active ingredients are tannins, oils and resins; and each component has importance to your home brew. If you’re not into chemistry, don’t worry; just be happy to know that something happens when hops are added to your brew.
 
The resins are the ingredients that supply the bitterness to your home brew beer. One of the resins is called ‘humulone’ and has the technical name of ‘Alpha Acid’ (AA) and the other resin of consequence is called ‘lupulone’ or ‘beta acid’. The bitterness of the hops comes from the more powerful humulones and this level of bitterness which varies with hop varieties is given an AA (Alpha Acid) rating. Thus, a strongly bitter hop has a rating of 7 to 11 AA compared with a milder hop of rating 3 to 5 AA.


Aroma
 
As well as bitterness, the other desirable factors are ‘aroma’ and flavour. For the home made beer brewing enthusiast, a balance of different hop varieties is essential to perfect your own favourite malty hoppy drop. Strong beers relying on malt for strength could have a high sweetness because of unfermented sugars from the malt and thus will require a strong bittering hops as well as aromatic hops to round off the overall brew.
  
Extraction
  
Extracting the bittering resins and active ingredients is achieved by boiling the hop flowers in water. The longer you boil the wort, the more bittering power you extract; and the more aroma and flavour you lose. Like extracting malt from grain, you need to be careful with temperature. So, boil the bittering hops for, say, one hour and then just as the boil is being stopped, add some aromatic hops so the excessive heat won’t kill the volatile oil aromas. One technique is to hold the hops in a suitable container and run the boiled wort through. Subtle? Yes! But when you hold up that sparkling pilsener glass of effervescent amber liquid and you say to yourself: “This is my own malty hoppy drop”, it will all be worth it.
 
Infuser Bag
 
On the other hand, in these days of top quality beer can kits to make home brew beer, all the malt extraction and hops blending have already been done for you by expert brewers. So, to experiment with extra hops, you can get the hops varieties in a little ‘teapot bag’ and include it in the cooled wort as the yeast is pitched and let the flavours infuse for the period of fermentation. So easy! So good!

Hops Infuser sachets come in sealed bags for freshness; come in a good variety to suit your recipe; you can experiment to develop your own favourite malty hoppy drop.
 
 Hop Varieties
 
AA = Alpha Acid
  
          Hop Variety                                AA                           Hop Variety                                     AA
       
     Admiral            
   11.5-14
     Northern Brewer
   7-9     
     Cascade     4.5-6.5      Nugget 

   13 
     Centennial    9.9       Opal     13 
     Challenger     6.5-8.5       Pacific Gem     14 
     Chinnook    11.3      Perle      5.5-8.5
     Cluster    5.5-8       Phoenix      8.5-11.5 
     First Gold    6.5-8.5       Pioneer      8-10 
     Fuggle    4.5-5       Pride Of Ringwood      7-9.5
     Galena     11.5-13      Saaz      2.5-4.5 
     Goldings    4.5-6.5         Spalter      3.5-5.5 
     Green Bullet    11-12       Spalter Select     4.3-5.5 
     Hallertau Triploid    9.5       Sticklebract     11-12 
     Hallertauer    4.8-6.5      Styrian Goldings      4-6
     Herald    11-13       Super Alpha     12-13 
     Hersbrucker    3-5       Super Styriana      8-10
     Kent Goldings    4.5-5       Target      10-12.5 
     Liberty     3.5-6       Tettnanger     3-5 
     Magnum    12-14      Victoria     13.3
     Mount Hood     4.5-6      Whitebread      5.5-7.5 
     Northdown    7-9       Williamette      4.5-7 

A wide variety of beer flavours and styles is possible with this range of hops for home brew beer.

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