One thing you can say for sure about the craft-beer revolution: it has elevated hops from a bit player to a starring role. American brewers just love hops to pieces, whether spicy, floral, piney, resinous, citricy, or herbaceous, and they are constantly finding new ways to showcase them in all their bitter and aromatic glory.”
- Randy Mosher, Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink
It’s summer and for American craft brewers that means hops. Many beer drinkers, who are not brewers, are often surprised to find out that beer is actually a sweet flavored beverage due to the sugars released from the malted barley. Hops balance the beer's sweetness with the bitterness of the hops. So let's talk a little about the hop plant. A climbing vine in the nettle family and closely related to marijuana, hops have been cultivated since ancient times, although they didn’t regularly find their way into beer until about a thousand years ago. The parts useful in brewing are the cones. Inside the hot cone there's a small internal stem, or strig, holding the leafy parts of the cone together. All around the strig are tiny golden globules of the pungent waxy substance lupulin. This contains the bitter resins and aromatic oils so valued in beer. Also in the lupulin are dozens of aromatic oils, each with its own character. Every variety and location produces hops with a unique mix. Floral to resiny, minty to spicy, hop aroma is a great tool for adding personality to beer.
The early craft brewers as Randy Mosher’s points out put hops into a starring role in the beer they made. Since many of the original craft founders were in California, these hop forward beers became associated with the state. One of the first Chicago region craft brewers to emphasize hops was Nick Floyd the owner and founding brewer at Three Floyd’s. His alpha king was as hoppy a beer as anyone in our region had ever tasted back in the early 1990s. To read my full interview with Nick, from our charter issue - click here. Last summer we reviewed many pale ale styles (American Beer Style Guidelines recognizes eleven sub style of Pale Ales) but this summer we are going to focus in on one sub style - Hazy IPA’s.
Hazy IPA’s go by many names - New England IPA, Unfiltered IPA, Cloudy IPA, and Juicy IPA - but don’t let the names confuse you, they are all Hazy IPAs.
The origin of Hazy IPAs is well known. John Kimmich of the Alchemist brewery in Stowe Vermont, in the early 1990s continued a tradition of unfiltered IPAs he learned to brew from Greg Noonan the late founder of Vermont Pub and Brewery.
In 2003 at this own brewery, the Alchemist, he began serving an IPA he called Heady Topper that was so popular patrons were sneaking the beer out of the brewery to share with friends. Because of this demand Kimmich began bottling the ale. This unusually cloudy pale ale had an unusual fruity or even juicy flavor and soon was a favorite all over New England. What started out as 1200 cases a week in 2013 turned into 10,000 barrels a year in 2018. Hazy IPA had taken American craft beer by storm and a new beer style was born.
A Hazy IPA, like the name suggests, has a cloudy appearance but hazy is far more than looks. Due to less filtering of the beer and a blending of malts such as wheat with oats and newer specialty hops these beers deliver a fruity or juicy flavor along with very creamy mouthfeel, strong hop flavor yet with little or no bitterness. While Alchemist Heady Topper started the style, today it is perhaps the most famous sub style of IPA’s in American craft brewing.
The first major craft brewery to a national hit with Hazy IPA was New Belgium brewery with their Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA. For me this beer was revelation, It truly was a new taste for beer. The fullness of flavor which included complex hops plus a fruit type “juiciness” a strong malt backbone and very smooth and creamy mouthfeel. I could not get enough of this beer.
No other Hazy IPA came close to this one for me, UNTIL, Sierra Nevada Brewery entered the market with their own Hazy IPA.
Hazy Little Thing IPA was simply tremendous! It was cloudy, full bodied, fruity nose with that silky malt and juicy hops all going down in a creamy and crips finish. And what is even more amazing, they do this all with hops and no added fruit or fruit extract. I still think it is the best Hazy IPA In the country. It will be tough to unseat in my book, but in this months beer reviews we will look at Hazy IPAs in the Chicago region and see how they hold up to the exceptionally high bar Sierra has set.
CHEERS,
Dan Taylor