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Should I dry hop my barleywine?

Beer Recipe Design
#1

Last year I made an Amer. Barleywine with about 3 oz of late hops and another 1.5 oz dry hop for a 6 gallon batch. It came out fairly well and I want to make another. One complaint I have about the first one is that it went from tasting like a malty double ipa to having much less hop flavor fairly quickly, like 6 months. By the time the malt was able to come out from behind the hop aroma the hops had begun to take a nose dive and it quickly got to malty for the style. I’m going to change the grain bill slightly but I I wondered if I should move more hops into the late addition and skip the dry hop to get a longer lasting and less “fresh” “ipa-like” hop aroma/flavor.

Does anyone have an experience that might help me decide?

#2

I would dry hop the beer and load up the late additions if you plan on keeping some around for awhile

#3

+1 Last year’s BW has won a couple of medals this year - about 70% of the IBUs were from the bittering addition, then another four oz late (20,10,5,0), and 4.5 oz for the dry-hop. There’s plenty of hop aroma and flavor left with bitterness to balance the malt and 10% ABV.

#4

I’ve heard that if you plan on keeping a beer for over a year, double all the hop additions from what you’d use if you were going to drink it fresh.

#5

No.

Dry hops, or any aroma hops, have no place in a BW.

By the time it’s aged enough to drink (several months), the aroma hops have fallen off. If you actually use a buttload of aroma hops and can still smell 'em after several months, that’s counterproductive too, as they, during brewing or dryhopping, have absorbed much of your precious beer.

#6

We’re talking about American Barleywine.
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style19.php#1c

#7

[quote=“beermebeavis”]No.

Dry hops, or any aroma hops, have no place in a BW.

By the time it’s aged enough to drink (several months), the aroma hops have fallen off. If you actually use a buttload of aroma hops and can still smell 'em after several months, that’s counterproductive too, as they, during brewing or dryhopping, have absorbed much of your precious beer.[/quote]

Say what?

#8

I stand by what I said, as my experience has borne it out. Take it or leave it.

#9

[quote=“beermebeavis”]I stand by what I said, as my experience has borne it out. Take it or leave it.[/quote]And what experience would that be? :wink:

#10

Brewing BW’s.

#11

You’re certainly entitled to your own preference, but I have never had an Am BW with no hop aroma at all and from experience both judging and entering competitions, the winning BW entries are usually the ones that combine a big malt backbone with substantial hop character.

#12

the best homebrew american barleywines ive had, have been dry hopped.

to each his own. but hops are the only thing I like in barleywines IMO. i have a hard time finishing really malty barleywines

+1 to shadetree

#13

I dry hopped my '08 & '09 BW. I did not with my Big '10. I enjoyed the hop aroma & flavors of the 2 previous years more than the Big '10. I’ll be dry hopping my '11. I say give it a shot. if you don’t like it, don’t do it again.

#14

When you guys dry hop the BW, when do you do it? I brewed one this summer and the recipe did not call for Dry Hopping. It has been aging in a keg in my basement for about 3 months or so. I am not sure if I am going to bottle part or all of this. I am guessing I would dry hop a few weeks before I would bottle or carbonate? Unfortunately it was a kit with no written recipe (top secret from a LHBS that won’t disclose their recipes) so I am not even sure what hops I added originally. So I would need a recommendation on variety and quantity of hops to Dry Hop.

#15

good luck retaining hop aroma, yet not absorbing a bunch of brew.

#16

Pellet hops are the way to go when dryhopping - more surface area so faster effect, fully submerge with no need to bag and weigh down, and absorb very little beer in the process.

#17

Pellet hops are the way to go when dryhopping - more surface area so faster effect, fully submerge with no need to bag and weigh down, and absorb very little beer in the process.[/quote]
+10 I’ve never had a problem with dry hopping. 1-2 oz of pellets had never soaked up a gallon or anything like that.

general statement:
if you don’t want to dry hop, don’t do it. if you don’t want to use LME or DME, don’t do it. don’t like secondary or bulk aging, don’t do it. but basically calling people stupid for using common homebrewing practices is a bit out of line, imo. advice can be given & taken, but there is more than only one way to make great beer. :cheers:

#18

Sirs, I don’t believe I said anyone was ‘stupid’. If you’ll read back you’ll note I was merely attempting to assist a fellow brewer thru my past experience.

I refuse to be sucked into an argument, friends. Bless you, my sons.

#19

On my American BW’s I ferment them out. Secondary cold condition for a month or so. Dry hop, then bottle or keg. If I keg it gets keg hops too.

By the way Sierra Nevada dry hops Bigfoot with Cascade, Centennial & Chinook.
Stone Dry hops Old Guardian with Centennial, Chinook, and Simcoe.
Rogue doesn’t dry hop Old Crustacean…great American Barleywines, but I like SN BF best out of all the commercial ABW.But it goes to show dry hopping does indeed have a place in the style.

#20

Pellet hops are the way to go when dryhopping - more surface area so faster effect, fully submerge with no need to bag and weigh down, and absorb very little beer in the process.[/quote]
+10 I’ve never had a problem with dry hopping. 1-2 oz of pellets had never soaked up a gallon or anything like that.

general statement:
if you don’t want to dry hop, don’t do it. if you don’t want to use LME or DME, don’t do it. don’t like secondary or bulk aging, don’t do it. but basically calling people stupid for using common homebrewing practices is a bit out of line, imo. advice can be given & taken, but there is more than only one way to make great beer. :cheers: [/quote]

Everybody knows you can’t make good beer with extract, you HAVE to secondary, and my way is the only way to make great beer. :wink:

(+1 to keg hopping)

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