What is unique in Belgian dry-hopped beers?

Renowned for a long time around the world for its unique dry-hopped Trappist Beer, Belgium has been also developing other dry-hopped beers, often with a nice equilibrium between bitterness, astringency, fruity flavors and green notes. New beers are constantly arriving on the market and traditional breweries are developing recipes to follow this trend. Today, Belgium has more than 30 different labels of dry-hopped beers. Even though dry-hopped beer is not considered a style, the addition of hop during the late stages of the brewing process (in presence or not of yeasts) brings singular characteristics to the beer1. Free2 and bonded polyfunctional thiols3, 4, polyphenols and unisomerized bitter components of hop can significantly modify the flavor profile of such beers5. The aim of this work was to investigate, by physicochemical and sensorial analyses, the main characteristics of dry-hopped Belgian beers