Bitterness, not just the disposition of our brewers, it’s a legit family of compounds necessary to classify a beer as a beer. The compounds in question are alpha-acids, they come from hops and you need a minimum of 4 of the little blights, to legally be a beer (so they are pretty important).
The goal is to get them hot enough so they undergo a chemical reaction to make iso-alpha-acids. Enough of the science speak - it makes them soluble so they can get in your beer and then in your facehole.
To measure bitterness we use the international bitterness scale, (no, not ib-me after a big game day shift) but IBU!
