What is ibu in beer brewing

Great work. I read your post. I really appreciated your work. About the Author: Anthony Towey. Anthony Towey spent over a decade working nearly every position in the bar and restaurant business before being hired as Content Editor and Social Media Manager for StateVentures- publisher of ShoreCraftBeer. The common understanding when it comes to the human palate is that we can only recognize the bitterness of a beer up to approximately IBUs.

Many have claimed to detect beyond that scale or that they can distinguish between a IBU beer and a IBU beer, but the science says otherwise.

If you do, you might miss out on trying a beer that amazes and tantalizes you just because of a little isohumulone. Skip to content. One of the most ubiquitous and least comprehensible methods of navigating the heavy seas is the IBU scale. But an IBU scale is more accurate for measuring bitterness than any method based on the rate of hops addition. What IBUs measure are the parts per million of isohumulone found in a beer.

Isohumulone is the acid found in hops that gives beer its bitter bite. Though the IBU scale can be used as a general guideline for taste, with lower IBUs corresponding to less bitterness and vice versa, it's important to note that malt and other flavors can mask the taste of bitterness in beer. Therefore, a beer with 20 IBUs and a minimal malt character may have significantly more bitter taste than a beer with 60 IBUs and a powerful malt profile.

This has led to some debate amongst the craft community about how useful the IBU scale really is. IBUs aren't always reliable indicators of how beer tastes, depending on the style and ingredients. The higher the gravity, the more hop bitterness will be masked. Also, no two brewing setups are the same, meaning the utilization, or rate at which flavor and bittering elements of hops dissolve into beer is never the same.

Other variables include hop varietals used, the age of the hops, and length of time boiled. The IBU scale also fails to take into account any other bittering agents — some malts, especially black malt can impart acidity, as can a slew of herbs and spices.