Home Brewing Hops – What are Hops? Hops are the flowers of the climbing hop plant found growing wild across the countryside but now cultivated around the world.
The plant part used in brewing beer is the hop flower which comes from the female cone-shaped delicate, pale green, papery flower.
Hops are also known by its scientific name Humulus lupulus.
Hops do different things for your beer depending on when they are used, bitterness to balance the sweetness of malt sugars if used early on and aroma if added at the end. But they are used primarily as a flavouring and stability agent as the resins that increase head retention in the beer. Hops impart bitter, zesty, or citric flavours. Hops also have an added bonus in that they act as a preservative and antiseptics to extend the life of beer.
Home Brewing Hops have a lot of alpha acids, which are the primary bittering agent used to balance the sweetness in the beer.
It is one of the 4 ingredients needed to in making beer but the only not essential one.
