FLEX® is a special formulation derived from pure hops, and its use is designed solely to provide bitterness to beer. FLEX eliminates a significant amount of the inert materials that come with the vegetative portion of hops and hop pellets, and thereby reduces weight, handling, and residual hop material that needs to be removed from the wort during brewing. The significant benefits from FLEX include its low viscosity, which allows it to be measured and dosed easily in the brew kettle, and the reduction of hop solids from wort, greatly reducing the process loss associated with the absorption of wort by the hop vegetative material.

FLEX is designed for dosage early in the brew kettle boil and because the product provides hop alpha acids—the same as those found in whole hops and hop pellets—the isomerization of these alpha acids into iso-alpha acids is still necessary by means of the boiling process in the brew kettle.

Switching from whole hops or hop pellets to FLEX will improve the utilization of the alpha acids for beer bittering, and the brewer can take comfort in knowing that the transition can be made with little or no effect on hop aroma.

FLEX has many advantages:

1. It is stable and can be stored for 18 months with negligible loss of brewing value.

2. Alpha acids utilization using FLEX in the kettle is better than whole hops and hop pellets; typically, between 10% and 20%, relative.

3. FLEX is extremely uniform and pourable at room temperature, with no need for sophisticated dosing equipment.

4. The alpha acids content is within a tight range, targeted at 65%.

5. Shipping, storage weight and volume are substantially reduced as only the hop’s extracted material is retained and packaged (typically less than 25% of the original hop material for high-alpha hops).