463: Dan Brouillette of Lumen Crunches the Data to Find the Best Hops
Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine PodcastShow Notes
Dan Brouillette has always worked in creative fields—he was a professional photographer before launching Lumen in the waning days of the pandemic—but he’s always been particularly attracted to the technical aspects of creation.
Like every IPA-focused brewer, he’s on a neverending search for the most expressive, layered, and interesting hops. But he’s also found that the information upon which many brewers rely when choosing hop lots often tells an incomplete story. Total oil numbers can be misleading, as they include oils that don’t survive the brewing process; hops that smell good relative to others at selection may not have high enough oil concentration to punch through in finished beer. Brouillette has found that using past chemical data paired with his own sensory can be far more effective when seeking out hops that are going to give him the impact he seeks.
In this episode, Brouilette shares:
how spreadsheets are often a better tool for selecting hop lots than the old-fashioned rub
his process for earmarking specific hop compounds at certain thresholds to ensure they’re effective in beer
designing different types of hazy IPA that appeal to different use cases and drinkers
achieving beautiful hop expression in hazy IPAs with less than 4 percent ABV
brewing hazy IPA with only 40 percent base malt
And more.
“We’re brewing our World Beer Cup beers right now, and those will be much different than a beer that I want to make Top Drops on Instagram,” Brouilette says. “They’re just different audiences. We don’t brew one type of hazy IPA. There are different segments and sub-styles within the style, and we brew all of those.”
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