The Cutting-Edge Ingredients Making IPAs More Pungent | VinePair

Since the bitter-IPA boom of the aughts, the American IPA has evolved into a high-powered tool calibrated to deliver appealing yet intense flavors and fragrances to drinkers. Our current IPA epoch prioritizes turbocharged fruitiness and intense scents. Creating love at first sniff once required breweries to add lavish amounts of hops, dry-hopping IPAs two, three, or four times.

“At some point, your liquid can only absorb so much,” says Chris Baum, the head brewer and a co-owner of Varietal Beer Co. in Sunnyside, Wash.

To help brewers boost aromatics, hop companies are developing high-tech solutions that are fueling today’s most fragrant IPAs. Crosby Hops in Woodburn, Ore., is cryogenically freezing fresh hops, helping brewers create harvest-fresh beers any time. John I. Haas, a hop supplier in Yakima, Wash., blends botanicals and hop oils to create Euphorics that can add intense yet familiar fruity flavors, such as Pineapple Paradise and Peachy Keen. And Abstrax Hops in Tustin, Calif., created the Skyfarm series of fruit flavors from strawberry to blood orange by using terpenes, no need for fruit purée.

For VinePair, I dive deep into all the high-tech advances in hops.