Why does beer smell like weed?

Someone always says it. You crack a can of Dank Redemption, pour it, and within about four seconds somebody in the room says "that smells like weed."

They're right. It isn't a coincidence, it isn't a gimmick, and it isn't clever naming. Hops and weed are cousins, and that's why Dank Redemption smells like that.

It's botany.

Hops and cannabis are family

Hops are Humulus lupulus. Cannabis is Cannabis sativa. Different plants, obviously. But they sit in the same botanical family, Cannabaceae, which makes them about as related as apples and pears.

Close relatives make similar chemistry.

Both plants build their aroma in sticky resin glands. On a hop cone that's the lupulin, the yellow powder that comes off on your hands when you rub one open. It's where everything that makes a beer smell like anything lives. And both plants fill those glands with the same family of compounds.

Terpenes.

Same molecules, different plant. Your nose isn't confused. It's recognising a cousin.

The terpenes doing the work

Terpenes are volatile aroma compounds. They're what makes pine smell like pine and lemon peel smell like lemon, and they're most of what you're getting off a heavily hopped beer.

A handful do the heavy lifting.

Myrcene is the big one. Earthy, resinous, slightly herbal. It's the most abundant terpene in a lot of hop varieties, and it's abundant in cannabis too. If a beer smells dank, myrcene is usually the reason.

Humulene is woody and earthy. It's named after the hop plant itself, which tells you how central it is. Cannabis has it as well.

Caryophyllene brings pepper and spice.

Pinene does exactly what you'd expect.

Linalool and limonene add the floral and citrus notes that lift the whole thing off the ground.

Every hop variety carries a different ratio of these. That ratio is the entire difference between a beer that smells like grapefruit and one that smells like a grow tent.

Why some IPAs are dank and others aren't

Two things decide it. Which hops, and when you add them.

Some varieties are simply loaded with myrcene and lean resinous and sticky. Others push citrus, stone fruit or tropical. Same plant, wildly different results, which is why hop selection is most of the job.

But timing matters just as much.

Terpenes are volatile, which is a polite way of saying they evaporate. Boil hops for an hour and most of that aroma leaves through the roof of the brewery. What you're left with is bitterness, which is useful, but it isn't smell.

So dank beers get built cold. Big additions right at the end of the boil, then dry hopping after fermentation, where nothing is hot enough to drive the terpenes off. That's how you end up with aroma that arrives before the glass does.

What "dank" actually means

It started as slang and ended up as a technical term, which happens more often in beer than you'd think.

In a brewery, dank describes something specific: resinous, sticky, earthy, a bit pungent. Less fruit, more forest floor. Less lemon zest, more resin on your fingers.

It isn't a euphemism or a wink. It's just the fastest word anyone's found for that particular smell, and now it's on beer labels.

No, it won't get you high

People ask. So, no.

Hops contain no THC. Terpenes are aroma compounds, not cannabinoids, and sharing a few of them doesn't make beer psychoactive. The only active ingredient in Dank Redemption is alcohol, and at 6.6% there's quite enough of that to be getting on with.

Drink it fresh

If you're buying a carton, this bit matters.

Those same terpenes that make the beer smell the way it does are the first thing to fade. Aroma is the most fragile part of any hoppy beer. A dank IPA six months old is a different, sadder drink than the same beer at six weeks.

Keep it cold, keep it dark, and drink it sooner than you think you need to. Nobody has ever regretted opening an IPA too early.

Dank Redemption Vol.2

Which brings us to the beer.

Dank Redemption Vol.2 is a Terpene IPA at 6.6%, brewed to chase that character on purpose rather than stumble into it. Brewed with Chinook, Citra & Mosaic hops for their bright citrus pine character then lashings of Strata for danky, dank, dankness. 

Pour it, get your nose in early, and time how long it takes before someone says it.

Buy Dank Redemption Vol.2 online, delivered anywhere in Australia.