For the Love of the Best Hops 2024

Good morning. It’s the time of the year where it’s finally acceptable to pull out the fancy bottle of barrel aged stout that you have been saving for a special occasion. Share it with family and friends, the way an expensive beer that is packaged in a wine bottle to is meant to be enjoyed.

Happy Holidays!

-Brandon Copeland

For the Love of the Best Hops 2024

Hops are most homebrewer’s favorite ingredient. While yeast is undeniably the most important (you’re not getting alcohol without yeast!), hops impact on beer are the most obvious. You can literally smell how it will cause your beer to taste, which if you love beer, is an intoxicating aroma (nothing better that taking a huff of the hops you’re about to drop in your wort).

When reflecting on 2024, all the beers that have been brewed, and all the grains, hops and yeast have been magically transformed into a delicious beverage, I stumbled upon the website Beer Analytics. This is a very simple website that leverages ChatGPT to crawl the internet and compile interesting trends on beer over the year of 2024.

The trend I was most interested in was the Most Used Hops of 2024 - these 10 hops are listed in the poll below (make sure to answer the poll below so we can see which hop wins!) and represent the hops found in the most recipes across the internet in 2024. I have, at some point in my homebrewing career, used all of these hops in different beers, so it tracks that these are the most used.

Cascade was likely my top hop of the year as well, primarily because that was the variety that I grew fresh at my mother in law’s house. Second was probably Citra, and third was Amarillo (it was a big pale ale/IPA year for me). I guess I’m “basic” as far as homebrewers are concerned…

I love that Motueka showed up on the Most Searched Hops at #5 - this past year I brewed a New Zealand Pilsner featuring Motueka, and I loved it. I believe this is going to be the next beer I brew since I loved it so much.

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Beer Trivia Question

🍺 There is an “urban legend” that you can chill a beer in just two minutes with what 2 ingredients?

Read to the end to find out if you're right!

Brewgr Recipe of the Week

Floral IPA 1

This is a hop forward IPA, featuring a simple grain bill and a complex hop list, with Warrior, Citra, Amarillo, and Loral represented. Loral is a hop I haven’t yet explored, and something I want to experiment with on a future brew.

Credit: Brewer 143799

Poll Results: Your Brewing 2024 Wrapped - How Many Beers Did You Brew?

Thanks to everyone who wrote in on this poll - we have some prolific brewers! This was one of the most even polls we have ever had, with brewers all over the spectrum - some brewers brew a few times a year, others brew a 5 gallon batch every week. This year, I was with the 4 - 6 brews crowd - I’m aiming to move to the 6 - 12 brew crowd in 2025, I’ll make it a New Year’s Resolution.

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And the Answer Is...

🍺 The two ingredients you supposedly need to chill a beer in 2 minutes in ice and salt, mixing them with the beer can/bottle in a bowl. I have never tried this and can’t confirm, but definitely need to give it a try in a pinch in the future.