Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. On today's episode, we kick off part two of our IPA special where we discuss various types of hops. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.

Connor Brekke 00:49

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the show. I'm joined once again with Mr. Dylan Schafer of Dialectic here in Mandan. And we're going to continue our IPA special with a little discussion about hops. All about hops today.

Dylan Schafer 01:04

Yeah, in case you guys didn't know that's that really is what makes an IPA and IPA is the hops.

Connor Brekke 01:10

Would you say that it makes people... hoppy?

Dylan Schafer 01:17

It sure makes me hoppy so... But yeah, there, those hops are definitely kind of the critical component of the IPA style. Generally speaking, when you're looking at beer styles, you're going to have some beers that are more, what we call "malt forward." So getting more of their flavor characteristics from the grain itself. Then you're going to have beers that are going to be more "hop forward," where you're getting more of the flavor profile from the particular hop varieties that we're using. And for everyone who's really new to the, to the beer scene, or to the brewing at all... hops are just the the herb or the flower that gives beer it's bitterness to balance out the sweetness of the malt in there. We do also have beers that are going to have dominant flavor characteristics coming from other additives, lactose, fruit, things like that. But generally speaking, you are going to see a beer that is either malt forward or hop forward. And IPAs are kind of the quintessential hop forward beer, for sure. And there's just a huge, kind of wide variety of different characteristics you can get from those hops, depending on what particular strain of hops you're using. So that being said, I will, I'll make a note that all hops are not created equal. Well, I love the flavor profile of just about every hop variety I've ever brewed with. They're very, very, very different depending on the strain you get. And there's... oh man, dozens, if not hundreds of unique hop strains that are out on the market today. And every single year, the industry is coming out with new experimental varieties of hops. And that definitely seems to be a trend nowadays is to get ahold of those new experimental ones and start brewing with them as soon as you possibly can.

Connor Brekke 03:10

And it sounds like you have a new distributor, and you have, sounds like, some better access to some of this stuff now.

Dylan Schafer 03:19

Absolutely. So up until this this last year... here at Dialectic, we'

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