Hazy IPA burst onto the scene in the early 2000s with beers like Heady Topper and has since dominated taprooms everywhere. This juicy, soft, and notably hazy style continues to grow in popularity, yet Google Trends suggests that as interest in Hazy IPA rises, overall interest in craft beer is on the decline. This week, we share our views on whether Hazy IPA is helping or hurting craft beer?
3 thoughts on “The Brülosophy Show: Is Hazy IPA HELPING or HURTING craft beer? | Brü’s Views”
Craft beer is declining for a number of reasons one of the bigger of these is that it is no longer new. It’s boom in the US is diminishing. Much like the 90s and single malt, the current craze for bourbon, the recent wine for heart health, etc.
Also, craft brewing and enthusiasm for craft beer is trending differently around the world. It is a newer (and robustly growing) idea in Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere.
A brewery owner once told me that, “9 out of 10 brewery owners are more interested in good money than good beer.” So some decisions are going to be business decisions made with less thought about the way a beer tastes than the way it sells. Businesses like to establish (and follow) trends. Trends don’t generally age well and are soon labelled fads and abandoned. Then on to the next thing.
On the upside, not finding the beer you want is a recognized driver of home brewing and there is evidence that home brewing is a significant driver of craft beer. So, home brewers do have some influence but, like most, it is less than they’d prefer.
I think that this is perhaps not the right question. It’s entirely possible that hazy IPA’s are both helping and hurting the industry. I have a lot of friends in the craft brewing industry and would like to see them succeed going forward. Hazy IPA’s are a major source of revenue for these breweries. That’s a good thing. On the other hand, I, too, have visited craft brewery taprooms that offer a dozen beers on tap and eight of them are some form of hazy ales (pale ales, IPA’s, DIPA’s). The other four taps consists of a Kolsch, a sour, a Saison, and a pastry stout. Not being a fan of hazy IPA’s, I am left with few choices here. No beer with any color other than the cloyingly sweet pastry stout. I’ll probably have a Kolsch and move on somewhere else. I like a variety of beer. This is my complaint. If you like hazy IPA’s, fine! Enjoy them! But, I would like to have some variety from which to choose. How about a pale ale, a West Coast IPA, a brown ale, a porter, an Irish stout, a Helles, a Dunkel. . . Wasn’t the whole reason that we started homebrewing and starting up craft breweries was that the existing breweries were only producing the same ol’ same ol’? This is where we are heading, I fear. Give me some variety of beers. I know that they can’t all be top sellers, but give customers some real choices. My two cents worth.
I like hoppy beers, and I think IPAs, and later, hazy IPAs really boosted the craft brew scene and made the public more aware of the variety that exists beyond the BudMillerCoors light beers that preceded them. That may just be my bias. But my love for great West Coast IPAs has been broadened considerably now that there are a lot of craft breweries, and I’ve now come to enjoy hoppier Pilsners and Belgians, too. Like one of the participants in the video, it’s the lack of bitterness in hazies that may draw in new drinkers, and I suspect that being around such variety of great brews in craft breweries will get some to branch out into other varieties, as I have.