Mad Hops Reviews

Sommbeer

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David Barrett, Founder, Sommbeer.com

“I think you’ve got a good product that I didn’t expect to like until I tried it.”

“If you can make a Coors Light taste good, you are performing beer magic. “

Beerded Adventures

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Another Taste Test! This time we try beers we can buy a 30 pack of. Then we try to improve them by adding Mad Hops!

Mar 19, 2016 – We get the opportunity to highlight some pretty amazing beers and some pretty fascinating beer-related products at mybeerbuzz headquarters…and today is no exception. This is “Mad Hops” Flavored Brew Drops and I think you’ll be excited to see our review. Mad Hops Flavored Brew Drops were created in 2014 by founder Peter Hanley on his one-acre hop yard in the Finger Lakes region of NY.

We were pleasantly surprised…
I wasn’t sure what to expect with Mad Hops going in, but in the end we were pleasantly surprised. Keep in mind you can vary the intensity of the flavors by varying the amount of drops, so be sure to experiment a little. Mad Hops does transform the flavor, aroma and color of the beer, and while it isn’t going to turn an average beer into an amazing IPA, it does make the beer look smell and taste better. I’m not aware of pricing so far, but I suspect someone with a tight beer-budget may benefit from Mad Hops and I also think Mad Hops may serve as a great transitional tool for someone just starting to enjoy better beers and more diverse beer-styles.

FloriBrew

January, 2017 – We poured the beer into rocks sized glasses, initially using equal amounts of each of the Mad Hops flavors. The instructions said to use a good squirt with a 12oz beer and since we were using roughly 5 ounce pours, we dialed it back. Easier to add a few extra drops rather than start over after overdoing it. We quickly noted that some of the flavors needed a little more than others to achieve the designed effects. For example, my daughter was quick to point out that the blueberry initially still allowed the Busch taste to seep through until we added a couple more drops.

Way Beyond Food Coloring
These drops go way beyond food coloring. Besides altering the color of the beer, the aroma is pretty on point too. The Apple Amber smelled like a glass of apple juice and the Irish Porter had the scent of a dark beer, maybe a little more like a brown ale than a porter but definitely not what came out of the can.

Our Favorites:

Irish Porter – nutty, pretty close to the real thing

Wild Blueberry – mild & not overpowering yet didn’t taste like Busch.

BeerNexus

Well, does it work? To answer that question I conducted three separate taste tastes under varying conditions. Each
test used a separate panel of beer lovers. Just to cover all bases one session was even held outdoors just to see if
humidity, sunlight, and air quality impacted the products performance. Okay, so I also just happened to be at
barbecue that day but let’s not be picky.

Not craft, but not Bud either…
Participants of Taste Test #1 were two professional brewers, the third was a owner of a home brew supply store.
I explained the premise, showed them the cute squeeze bottles, and then opened a pint can of Budweiser. Just
seeing the Bud caused the two brewers to make the sign of the cross while the home brew shop proprietor seemed to make some sort of hexing gesture toward it. I squirted the Apple Amber Mad Hops drops into a imperial pint glass and added the beer. This sequence was repeated for the Pale and then for the Porter drops. Their consensus – it’s not craft beer but it’s also not Budweiser.

The panel’s most veteran analyst said “if I was a low cash student back in college I might use it to jazz up my case of Red, White and Blue beer.”

A beer savvy drinker in Taste Test #2 found the Pale Ale to be fruity and drinkable; the Porter to have notes of marshmallow and a hint of maple syrup. She likened the Apple to a lightly sweet and sour lambic.

Mad Hops: Fun and effective
The bottom line as I see it is that Mad Hops is fun to use and effective in what it purports to do – make cheap beer
taste better. It definitely worked in my blind taste test with serious and open minded beer fans. I’m guessing it will do than and more for their targeted customers and likely a few of we older people.

As I see it – it can’t make a good beer better but it can make a tasteless beer a bit more flavorful!

What more do you want? You could do worse – you could be drinking a Bud.

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