Many people have noted harsh, unpleasant polyphenols from the high late hopping in NEIPA. Could that be it?
Kind of my assumption however 4 oz at the end of the boil and 6 oz dry is nothing compared to what a lot of people use. Are you referring to the hops at the end of the boil?
My IPA's aren't exactly the NEIPA style, but they share the heavy late hopping and minimal (zero, in my case) bittering charge. I get a similar harsh bitterness (kind of an herbal/medicinal bitter quality) in many of my IPA's, and quite a few commercial examples as well. Most of my IPA experimentation in recent years has been to try to get rid of this character while maintaining the intense hop flavor that I love in my IPA's.
Here's some of what I've found:
- I notice this starting at about 1.5-2 ounces of hops per gallon, and it gets more noticible at higher hopping rates
- Polyclar and gallotannin gave both failed to reduce this character
- I have gotten this from whirlpool-only beers (i.e., no dry hops or bittering charge). That's not to say that it can't come from dry hops, but it definitely can come from whirlpool hops
- Pellet hops and cryo hops both give this type of bitterness at high hopping rates
- I do not get this character when a significant portion of my hops are whole cone
I still have some further testing to confirm, but my current working hypotheses are:
- Chopped up vegetative material in pellet hops has a greater surface area for releasing whatever is causing this flavor.
- Heat may increase the extraction of this character. A good test would be having a moderate bittering charge and a massive dry hop addition only, with no late-boil hops.
- Leaf hops may help pull/keep this out of the finished beer when used in conjunction with pellet hops. I'm not quite sold on this yet, but the couple of times I've used both types together I've had the best results in my IPA's.
Topic: medicinal bite - astringency? (Read 6094 times)
