Dryhopping Lagers

I did some research on the question of dryhopping in German and Bohemian Pilsners (and other lagers). The primary question was whether Bohemian Pilsners should be dryhopped or not.

• Since the primary issue was Bohemian Pilsners, I first checked the articles on Pilsner Urquell in Brewing Techniques and Zymurgy. "Pilsner Urquell: The Brewery" by Darryl Richman (Zymurgy Volume 14, Number 2, Summer 1991) describes their processes in great detail yet there is no mention of adding hops to the fermenters. In "The History of Brewing Methods of Pilsner Urquell" (Brewing Techniques Volume 5, Issue 3, May-Aug 1997), Peter Ensminger explicitly states that Pilsner Urquell is not dryhopped.

• Several HBD posters (including me) have noted that dryhopped lagers simply do not taste or smell like their commercial equivalents. A Bohemian Pilsner that I foolishly dryhopped turned out to be slightly grassy and quite estery (hop oils contain many different esters) which were completely wrong for a Bohemian Pilsner. It was a tasty beer, but nobody would mistake it for a Pilsner Urquell clone.

• Papazian does not dryhop any of his lagers in TCJoHB.

• Noonan mentions dryhopping in both books, but specifically says that it is generally inappropriate for lagers.

• In Malting and Brewing Science, dryhopping is only mentioned in the same paragraph with British brewing practices and cask-conditioning. While this book is primarily about British brewing, they do go into some details about US and continental beers and practices. There was no mention of dryhopping in continental lagers.

• DeClerck says about dryhopping: "This practice is frequent in Great Britain for draught beers."

• I sent email to Hubert Hanghofer in Austria asking whether he or his son (who is currently studying at Weihenstephan) has ever heard of dryhopping of continental lagers. I haven't gotten a confirmation from his son, but Hubert agrees with me that continental lagers do not appear to be dryhopped by any of the brewers and believes that Warsteiner (a beer that Dave Miller claims is dryhopped) is not dryhopped. Hubert also quoted a section from the "EBC Manual of Good Practice" in which it is stated that whole hop oils do not produce a "satisfactory flavour" The book specifically mentions "raw hop, tobacco and grassy" notes.

  It is also interesting to note that Hubert mentioned that Narziss (who wrote "Abriss der Bierbrauerei" -- what Hubert calls "our bible") describes dryhopping during lagering of Altbiers. My understanding is that the everyday Altbiers in Duesseldorf are not dryhopped these days... only the special batches made for their loyal customers (called "Sticke") are dryhopped by some of the brewers.

• I called Ralph Olson at HopUnion and asked him about it. He said he has never heard of dryhopping continental lagers, but would check with his contacts in Germany. He called me back and said that even his agent in Germany has never heard of a German or Bohemian brewer dryhopping a lager.

• Dave Miller dryhops all of his lagers. His claim that Warsteiner is dryhopped is what really caused me to email Hubert... the Warsteiner we get here is pretty beat up by the time we get it and when I'm in Germany, I tend to drink only the beers that I can't get here (a mistake I should correct on my next visit). I had theorised that perhaps there is a strong hop aroma in fresh Warsteiner, but that it fades in transit. Hubert seems to indicate this is probably not the case.

• I don't have Dave Line's book, but it has been posted in HBD that he does indeed recommend dryhopping lagers, although at a much lower rate than recommended by Miller. We should also remember that Line was British and his methods were no doubt influenced by British commercial brewers.

• Finally, in "Designing Great Beers," Ray Daniels (in the chapter summary page) says that Continental Pilsners may or may not be dryhopped. However, it is important to remember that Daniels'recipe recommendations are statistically derived from the 1993 and 1994 AHA National Homebrew Competition second round recipes and therefore are at the mercy of errors made by the entrants. I suspect that Miller's (errant) recommendation to dryhop lagers could very well be the reason that judges in the 1st round of the `93 and `94 nationals chose to pass 8 dryhopped Pilsners into the second round.