Innovative Hop Techniques for Flavor Enhancement in Brewing

Paul Schneider of Cinderlands is an optimist and a realist—but first and foremost he’s an analyst, studying the evolution of consumer trends and working tirelessly in the brewhouse to find creative and process solutions. He’s not afraid to use all the tools at his disposal—pulling solutions from food science, where necessary—while testing, honestly evaluating, and ensuring that everything they produce at Cinderlands meets the expectations of their drinkers.

The Pittsburgh brewery drastically overhauled its fruit beer program for 2024, moving away from sweeter, thicker fruit beers in favor of flavored light lagers and “beyond beer” beverages, but—as Schneider explains in this episode—that shift required significant research in the food-science space. He’s also been an avid adopter of modern hop products, and here he shares their approach to layering hops in a variety of formats to achieve a variety of goals—from value-engineering IPAs for wider distribution to maximizing intensity in brewery-only releases.

Over the course of the episode, Schneider riffs on:

• designing fruit beers to hit different value tiers without sacrificing flavor
• altering processes and bitterness in base recipes for balance with specific fruit additions
• light lager as a base for fruit beer
• sourcing juice and purée concentrate for more survivable and ranging fruit flavors and aromas
• using natural flavor top-notes in conjunction with other fruit formats
• adjusting dosing down in production batches from bench trials
• using flavor psychology to bolster fruit flavors without sugar
• value-engineering hop flavors and aromas for production IPAs without sacrificing quality
• saturating hop notes in the UHD (Ultra Hop Definition) series

And more.

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