The cannabis and hops plants are part of the same plant family, the Cannabinaceae family, per The Growler. Maybe it’s no wonder then, that beer and cannabis have thousands of flavor variations, sharing many of them. Since microbreweries became immensely popular in the early 2000’s, you see beers in hundreds of citrus and fruity variations. There’s ale, pale ale, IPA’s, hefeweizens, Stout’s, wheat ale, and many others.
Beer flavors are similar to cannabis flavors because of terpenes. The hoppy, citrus, skunky, musky, earthy, etc. are all decided by the present terpene profiles. Although hoppy pants share many terpenes with cannabis, like myrcene, pinene, humulene, they each produce terpenes that the other does not.
Now the science is revealing how terpenes are the focus for flavor in beer and cannabis, brewers are now experimenting brewing beer with cannabis-derived terpenes that you can’t find naturally in hops or beer. Lagunitas Brewing and Absolute Extracts collaborated over the Lagunitas Supercritical for the first ever beer brewed with cannabis-derived terpenes, and it’s exclusive to California for the time being, per Herb.co.
It’s important to note that terpenes contain no psychoactive effects, even when they’re derived from cannabis. THC provides the psychoactive effects of cannabis while the hop’s fermentation process is what causes beer’s intoxicating effects. Adding terpenes changes the flavor and olfactory experience of the beer. True cannabis-derived terpenes themselves have medicinal benefits, and some people are more sensitive to certain terpenes, so I think it’s fair to speculate that adding cannabis-derived terpenes to beer could vary the effects on top of aroma and flavor.
RMR Beer and Cannabis Pairings
Lifted Golden Lemons vs. Iron Horse High Five Heffe
Stable Cannabis Orange Apricot vs. Seattle Cider Co. Tangerine Tumeric
Daddy Fat Sacks Sour Kush vs. Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
Sweetwater Farms OG vs. Reuben’s Brews Robust Porter
