Bitter Debate: Two Perspectives on Achieving Consistent Bitterness in Homebrewed Beer

This article is the September/October 2016 Zymurgy magazine online extra. The international bittering unit (IBU) is meant to tell us something about the bitterness of our beer, but the scale is far from perfect. What does it mean for two beers to express the same bitterness, and must numerical equality necessarily follow sensory equality? Here are two perspectives on bitterness and IBUs from experienced homebrewers who have spent more time than most of us pondering such ideas. * * * The Hop Paradox: Are Homebrewers Getting IBUs All Wrong? By Kyle Jones Something has been bothering me lately. It started with an ongoing problem with some of my hop-forward beers: many didn’t have quite the level of bitterness I had targeted. I was pretty confident in my homegrown brewing software, which is based on data in classic books…

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