Digitalization, innovation, and sustainability are currently driving the beverage and brewing industry. However, efficiency is the key factor propelling the industry beyond these three areas, with brewhouses worldwide focusing on using valuable raw materials as efficiently and sparingly as possible, regardless of size.

While highly efficient hop products have been used for decades to impart bitterness in beer, since the 1990s, brewers have increasingly focused on maximizing hop aroma. The development of Hazy and Juicy IPAs has led to a dramatic increase in the quantities of hops used in brewing, with dosages of up to 5 kg per hectoliter now quite common.

Even though there is a current trend in the craft beer industry toward less hop-driven lagers, hop-infused beers continue to provide an opportunity for breweries to differentiate themselves and build a diverse portfolio.

The technology of dry hopping also presents a chance to bring the quality and flavor of non-alcoholic products closer to that of regular beer, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction.

Despite the advantages of heavily hopped beers, brewers must also consider some negative aspects when hopping aggressively.

As discussed in a previous article on Spectrum product losses due to dry hopping can be substantial. It has also been shown that enriched hop pellets, such as LUPOMAX® Pellets, can reduce beer losses, but the fundamental challenges of dosage and hop particle removal remain.

Every (craft) brewer who employs dry hopping methods eventually needs to address issues such as yield and costs, and this is where SPECTRUM offers many advantages and flexibility compared to conventional hop products.

While static dry hopping—i.e., the dosing of loose or bagged hop pellets without any equipment—eventually reaches its technical limits, investments in modern, fully automated dosing systems with hop retention can quickly run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Equipment for producing hop slurries—mixtures of hops and beer (or deaerated water)—is significantly cheaper, but the entire load of hop particles is flushed into the tank. These plant particles must then either be separated using centrifuges after hop plugging, or the tanks must be emptied above the hop/beer phase via a secondary valve (racking arms or extended yeast spouts), which results in high beer losses.

It is clear that the methods and products predominantly used to produce hoppy beers have a major impact on breweries’ profitability. Therefore, it is not surprising that more and more products are being introduced to enhance process efficiency and yield.

As most hop aroma components are insoluble in water, many products are designed for use in the hot part of the brewing process to increase the solubility of key components. This is also due to the challenge of dissolving aroma components without a non-hop emulsifier, which are often unpopular in the brewing industry.

After years of development, BarthHaas successfully launched SPECTRUM in 2021. By combining various extraction technologies, they produced a flowable hop extract that is so soluble in aqueous and cold mediums that there is no risk of losses due to plant particles when using SPECTRUM alone. No investment in special dry hopping equipment is necessary, and no additional steps are required to remove hop particles.

Consequently, the use of SPECTRUM also offers significant potential for enhancing hop aroma intensity by biotransforming hop aroma components into more fruity notes and releasing aromas from so-called precursors.

To demonstrate the positive effects of using liquid hop products, particularly SPECTRUM, BarthHaas is currently collaborating on projects that showcase the benefits of these innovative products.

One such project involved the conversion of the Hoptopod recipe from Dogma Brewery in Serbia.

Hoptopod is the brewery’s best-known beer and a top seller in the Balkan region. It is a West Coast style IPA that has been part of the brewery’s portfolio for a long time, using 100% T90 pellets in the current recipe.

The goal of the collaboration between Dogma Brewery and BarthHaas was to completely replace the hop pellets with liquid hop products while retaining the original flavor. The resulting beer is named Meta-Hoptopod.

To collect data, brews of 40 hL for both Hoptopod and Meta-Hoptopod were produced. All relevant parameters, such as brewed quantity, bottling volume, and losses, were documented.

Thanks to the use of liquid hop products, beer production and bottling volume increased by over 10%. Beer losses were drastically reduced to just 3% of the cast-out quantity, and a time savings of around 25% was achieved from mashing to bottling.

The results clearly indicate that efficiency can be improved in various aspects of the overall production process.

For further insights into the use of advanced hop products for efficient brewing, you are welcome to attend our presentation on the first day of Brew Asia in Singapore (Title: “Unlocking Maximum Efficiency: Advanced Hop Products Shaping the Future of the Craft Brewing Industry”) or visit our Booth G1.