For ages, professional brewers have gone to great lengths to produce the clearest of beers, no doubt appealing to appearance conscious consumers. Similarly, homebrewers desiring a product of seemingly equal quality invest quite a bit of effort in clarifying their beer– collecting the clearest wort from the mash, fining with Irish moss or Whirlfloc in the boil, cold crashing, hitting the fermented beer with a post-fermentation fining agent such as gelatin or Clarity Ferm. A beer’s clarity is viewed by many as the first sign of quality.
But this isn’t universally true, at least not among a growing subset of trend-bucking, clear beer scoffing brewers who have begun producing hazy beer intentionally, some to the point of appearing downright murky. And people are eating it up! Over the last few years, the increased popularity of opaque, “juicy,” so called New England/Northeast style IPA has led to some controversy in the brewing and beer world with one vocal contingent claiming the haze contributes to a character all its own while another equally as loud group questions such claims. Conversations between folks on either side of clarity line often devolve into accusations of close-mindedness, poor brewing skills, and occasionally cynical suggestions of regional breweries just trying to make a name for themselves.
For today’s Brü’s Views, I asked the contributors to share their honest opinions on the clear/hazy beer controversy. I reached out to multiple brewers of popular hazy IPA seeking contributions, my intention being to allow them the opportunity to clarify (no pun intended) their perspective and approach. For the first time since starting this series, I didn’t receive a single response from any of the four breweries I initially contacted. It’s totally likely they were too busy or my email got sent to a spam folder or, I don’t know, they don’t like typing…
Thankfully, my buddy and juicy beer advocate, Ed Coffey, hooked me up with a friend of his who produces a few examples of hazy New England IPA professionally and who also happens to be a fan of Brülosophy. A huge thanks to John Wible from Philadelphia’s 2nd Story Brewing Company for sharing his views on hazy beer!
On The Hazy Beer Controversy
| JOHN WIBLE |
Some people (West Coasters, I’m looking at you) think hazy beers are the result of a flawed brewing process. Sure, we’ve all run into a few hazy beers that have been brewed improperly. I’d personally call those murky, not hazy. I’m not advocating for those beers. But properly brewed, hop-forward beers need not be filtered or fined to remove residual protein/hop haze.
Filtered or fined beers have become the norm on the West Coast particularly. But this status quo is limiting the perspective on IPAs that present as hazy; many such beers are coming out of the Northeast region of the U.S. right now. There are several well known breweries in the area that are brewing with precision, proper technique and handling, and those beers are hazy. These IPAs are of equal quality as the brite West Coast beers. It would be a travesty to ignore these hazy beers simply because they are not the historical “norm”. The reality is these styles historically wouldn’t have been brite. It’s a testament to how far we have progressed with brewing science that clarity is achievable even when there are brewing or fermentation flaws. But we should aim for flawless brewing and fermentation, whether it results in a brite beer or a hazy beer.
It’s not just a simple matter of preference though, hazy or brite. The protein/hop haze of a beer can add a certain texture to the experience. The mouthfeel of a dry-hopped beer is certainly different than the same beer when fined/filtered. That texture is desirable in my opinion. I’m not talking about murky beers where there’s visible material floating around the glass, or where fermentation wasn’t allowed to fully complete. What I’m describing is well-brewed beer that has a lasting haze as a desired result or byproduct of the process. These hazy beers have substance behind them. A lasting protein haze, at least in my case, has to do with using adjuncts like flaked varieties of oats and wheat. The mouthfeel and overall malt profile gain is worth the haze. I very much appreciate the huskiness that oats lend to a beer without adding sweetness or color.
The filtering/fining process is part of the recipe of beer. Some beers are best clarified, but others should not be. Whether to filter or fine is as crucial to the recipe of a beer as something as important as mash temp. Perception is everything and we, of course, taste with the visual appearance of a beer first. Some brewers are opting to make every IPA crisp, almost abrupt, by filtering/fining. I’d argue they’re limiting the potential of some of these beers. I’ve made versions of the same Double IPA, with and without fining. The unfined version looks more appealing, more substantial. It’s a beer you can dig into. That IPA would not be what I intended it to be if I clarified it. It was conceived as a hazy beer and thus remains so.
What do consumers think of the haze? Well, some might be used to or simply expect the brite beers they see around. But if they’re interested in tasting the fullness of a beer, they might need to trust us brewers a bit. I’ll make a brite beer when it’s supposed to be brite. But let them embrace the haze of a dry hopped IPA with me. If we allow our beers to represent a spectrum of taste, texture, and haziness, we’ll all be drinking a lot more good beer together.
Bottom line: Don’t assume a hazy beer is the result of bad brewing. I don’t want the intentionality of my hazy beer to be misconstrued as poorly brewed beer. It’s hazy, not murky. And it’s supposed to be that way.
| GREG |
I’ll admit that I, like I imagine most people, have an innate bias for the beauty of clear beer. Like the saying goes, we drink with our eyes first, and few would likely disagree that clear beer is far more visually pleasing. There is always going to be a tinge of pride that comes from handing a friend a homebrewed beer that is every bit as sparkling clear and inviting as commercial offerings.
When it really comes down to what I want to drink, though, I don’t particularly care about clarity. Hand me a beer, any beer, crystal clear or cloudy as mud, as soon as it hits my lips, I try to only be concerned with the one thing that matters- taste. Is the beer visually pleasing? My mouth doesn’t have eyes. Is it to style? If it’s not a BJCP competition, who cares. Is it highly ranked on BeerAdvocate? Doesn’t matter. All I care about in that moment is the symphony of flavors blanketing my taste buds. Impossible as it may be to overcome one’s own biases, I try my best to ignore all preconceived notions and attempt to experience the beer as it is. Clarity simply doesn’t matter.
Recently, there has emerged a small but growing contingent espousing the virtues of cloudy beer, namely the Northeastern IPA. I’d love to pass judgement on this style, good or bad, but I’m a West Coaster with little access to these delicious sounding concoctions. The vast majority of beer I consume you could read a book through, and the remaining is mostly jet black. As a hop lover, I’m quite curious about this infamous new style since so many hail it as the next big thing in beer, but really, is cloudiness the defining characteristic that makes it so special? Could the same flavor profile and silky mouthfeel not be achieved in a way that also maintains perfect clarity? I’ve waited far too long to start experimenting with Northeastern IPA, an oversight I look forward to correcting immediately.
| MARSHALL |
I live by a simple philosophy, it may seem disingenuous to some, but it has afforded me a rather pleasant existence. Basically, I don’t allow my personal perspectives to influence my expectations of others. I acknowledge that a particular belief or opinion is not inherently true or better merely because I am its holder. This mentality allows me to accept those I staunchly disagree with on all kinds of stuff, big or small, to a degree even my wife sometimes finds annoying. I do my best to speak and think equivocally, allowing myself the opportunity to change my mind in light of adequate evidence while expecting no such reciprocation from others. This doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions. I do, strong ones, even when I’m not trying to convince people I’m right.
Even on things as trivial as beer clarity.
I truly couldn’t care less what another person chooses to drink and would never deride someone because they prefer something different than me, seriously at least. Personally, I like my beer clear, and the fact xBmts on the matter have thus far shown fined/clear beer to be largely indistinguishable from hazy versions only buttresses this opinion. I will change my mind without hesitation when a panel of blind tasters are capable of distinguishing a hazy beer from a clear version of the same recipe. In fact, I will even stop fining my own beers if, when tasted blindly, I am able to reliably select the unique sample, I prefer the hazy one… and it doesn’t result in me taking multiple trips to the loo the following morning.
I adhere rather strongly to the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I’m still waiting for the evidence demonstrating haze as adding something substantial to beer. Thus far, the huge majority of the support I’ve seen for hazy IPA comes from anecdotal reports, people claiming they perceive a qualitative difference. If there’s anything about this whole thing that makes me scratch my head, it’s this. While I think it’s pretty dickish to accuse people of being bad brewers because of the way their beer looks, particularly when said beer is selling like crazy, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something more at play. It makes sense to me, for example, that brewers from a particular region looking to stand out might do something like popularize hazy beer as a mostly playful snub to other regions, and that drinkers from that region would latch on the same way we do local sports teams. I’m cool with that.
To be fair, I have only tried a couple commercial examples of intentionally hazy beer, Heady Topper being one of them (a few times). I liked them all just fine, but I was curious how my experience might have been different had the beer fit my arguably vain perspective of what a good beer should look like.
| RAY |
I’m vain. I’ll admit it, especially when it comes to beer, I want it to look pretty.
Admittedly, I never gave much thought to beer clarity before I was a brewer. Most beers were clear, though some were not, and that was okay. Occasionally, I would have a bottle conditioned beer and learned I could pour it clearly if I did so carefully, but agitation would cause the beer to be cloudy. And it would taste different, the yeast after all has a flavor of its own, and I preferred the clear pours.
When I began homebrewing and bottle conditioning, I continued this practice, as most probably did, but soon learned some beers would remain cloudy despite having a nice compact yeast cake on the bottom of a bottle. What gives? Eventually, I learned not all yeast drops at the same time, and of something called chill haze. I took to leaving bottles a week or two in the fridge before opening them to eliminate most of this haze since I’ve always preferred beer that is clear. I like looking at it, I perceive it differently (undoubtedly due to bias), and find it cleaner and more enjoyable to drink.
When I started kegging, gelatin fining replaced time as my weapon of choice against haze, I came to view gelatin as “powdered time” in that it didn’t do anything cold storage wouldn’t eventually do, but in 2-3 days what gravity alone would take 2-3 weeks to accomplish.
But why bother? When I look around, I see a growing presence of hazy beer from Wit, Hefeweizen, and New England IPA where haze is welcomed and almost revered, to all-sorts of craft beer that’s simply proud to be “unfiltered,” presumably as a distinction from mass-market lagers that are universally bright. Many people seem to appreciate these beers and even favor their hazy nature, so why do I take the time to use gelatin to clear my beer?
Well, I like it. I like the way it looks. I like the way light refracts through to highlight the colors. I also know when drinking it that it will be free of excess yeast in suspension, which I don’t personally care for. There are multiple sources of haze, I know, some that impact flavor, some that seemingly do not. Clear beer avoids both types. When I drink a cloudy beer, I am left questioning– is there a bunch of yeast in suspension? Is it just hop haze? Is it chill haze? Clear beer takes these questions away.
And it’s pretty. Did I mention I like the way it looks?
| MATT |
Quite a bit of debate over hazy vs. non-hazy beer on the old intertubes lately. I think the toughest part about all of it is sorting out everyone’s personal definitions. Labels have been assigned, styles made up, reasons given, and all by people of various degrees of qualification and sanity until you come up with the internet’s equivalent of an agreement– an amalgamation of easily digestible but not quite accurate terms.
We end up asking ourselves a stream of consciousness line of questioning but not really answering anything, which can lead to schizophrenic answers. For example:
What does unfiltered mean and what does it look like? How hazy is hazy? What is a NE IPA? Is that even a thing? Aren’t some beers naturally hazy? Are we just talking hop haze or a specific level of suspended particulate matter? Does not liking hop floaties make me less of a beer drinker? Why would anyone want to drink something called “suspended particulate matter?” Is it made out of hops? Oh, then I’ll try it. That was great/awful! Give me another/dump this and kill it with fire!
Since all of this is not “officially” defined and it is all subject to one’s point of view, I would wager that the correct answer depends on your own personal tastes, training, preferences, and availability of examples of both. Classic brewers raised to compare themselves with the finest of old style German brewers are going to fault anything hazy that does not include “hefe” or a derivative in the title. New wave “punk” brewers are likely to be open to anything that pushes boundaries and creates intense flavors, from souring brews from beard cultures to leaving a veritable green smoothy of lupinoid loveliness in the glass. The truth is, both of these camps are responsible for craft beer as we know it today and both have a legitimate point. So my opinion has limited merit… but so does everyone else’s.
To me, if I can physically feel the particulate on my tongue and it is leaving residue behind, I’m not likely to enjoy the beer. I’ve had a hazy IPA bomb before and my first inclination was to send it back. That there was something wrong with the keg (first/last pour) or they sent me the wrong beer. Not so long ago, that was 98% correct, with the outlier being a new beer that wasn’t as well made as the brewery hoped in an early batch, but it corrected itself going forward (based on specific examples with new breweries after trying their beers). Now, we have to carve out a space and definition for a beer that might just mean to look/feel/taste like that, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.
If super hazy is how you like your beer, that is how you should drink your beer. However, don’t expect classical brewers or keepers of the style to not at least snort in your direction occasionally. You both have a point. Don’t worry, keep calm, buy them a round. You might change their mind… and it works both ways, even if you do enjoy chewing hop cud.
| MALCOLM |
I like hazy beer. In fact, I like just about every type of beer when that it’s formulated and brewed well. If I were to judge a particular style of beer solely on my first impressions, there wouldn’t be many left at all. Such is not the case. I endeavor to find the best beers, especially as new interpretations pop up or historical recreations find there way into the craft portfolios and homebrew forums. I’ve always loved Hefeweizen, Saison, and certainly Witbier. Give me an Orval with a careful decant or with a yeast swirly toward the end- two different yet equally great beers in one bottle!
Being from Western, MA, when Heady Topper was making strides several years ago, some of my beer loving Masshole friends asked if I’d tried it, I hadn’t, so they got me some with strict instructions to drink it yesterday. I was hooked. What was this creation? An almost creamy, hop and protein laden beer with an alluring haze and deep orangish hue. I was warned about the appearance and saw pictures of it on the web, but to see it was striking indeed. There had no doubt been hop hazy beers before this, but Heady was dialed to 11. It was almost like a hoppy witbier, perceptibly creamy vs. dry, except without a hint of the Belgian yeast character. Instead, the yeast and hops coupled for a peachy and citrusy bomb that left me wondering where the yeast ended and the hops began.
I don’t know if John Kimmich reinvented the wheel, but he was my first, and others didn’t seem to follow suit for awhile afterwards. Recently, versions of NE IPA have been popping up everywhere, and they’re getting hoppier, hazier, and even murkier. To me, some have taken it too far and are serving yeasty milkshakes that not only look completely unappealing but have horrible yeast bite, though others are deftly creating beautifully balanced tropical bombs that I crave and think about long after the last sip is gone. The key to the latter, in my opinion, is skill, execution, mastery of ingredients, and process. Some have it and some apparently do not.
When it comes to these turbid “monstrosities,” well… who cares!? Seriously. Why the f@#k does anyone care what someone else likes or hates? I loathe mayonnaise, but it’s easily avoidable, so when I order a sandwich I request it without mayo. Beer drinkers can do the same– if you don’t like a beer, don’t order it. If you order murky beer by accident and end up not liking it, don’t be afraid to send it back. Problem solved.
What I don’t get is the adamant proclamation that one version, clear or hazy, is better than the other. That kind of judgement can only be subjective, the truth is they’re simply different. The desired profile is up to the brewer.
Ultimately, delightful hazy or even murky beer is not a fault if the brewer did it on purpose. If you’re growing dandelions, grass is the weed! If a brewer wanted the beer to be cloudy and it came out clear, that is a fault. Regardless, whatever you do, please don’t stop tearing people down for their personal preferences, if you did the internet would become a boring and too civil of a place. No one wants that.
That’s where we stand, how about you? Are you a clear beer lover or a haze-head? How do you view professionally brewed beer you can’t read a magazine through? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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54 thoughts on “Brü’s Views w/ John Wible | On The Hazy Beer Controversy”
There are three facts that form the basis of my opinion on hazy beers:
1. Chemically, beer haze is formed from polyphenols (hop and/or grain) and proline-rich polypeptides.
2. So is astringency.
3. Beer haze is known to decrease beer flavor stability. (i.e., it promotes staling)
Therefore, I recommend minimizing beer haze from a “best practices” point of view. If you as a beer drinker like that character, both visually and tastefully, then fine. There are both Democrats and Republicans in this world. 😉
Well said. Cheers!
John, science and fact have no place here. This is an opinion piece! ???? j/k.
I agree, because it’s proven to be so, that many of the benefits of clear beer are flavor stability and shelf life concerns.More food for the bad guys, and more “stuff” to oxidize, but these beers are meant to be consumed rather soon after maturity or stored cold. I’ve seen video and read articles of John K advising as much. I think of them differently than standard beer and perhaps, to some, the fleeting nature of their flavor & character are part of the allure. Drink it now!
Shelf stability is not a concern. Producers and drinkers of hazy IPA realize that the product is not shelf stable. That’s why they drink it as fresh as possible. All IPA should be consumed as fresh as possible, but for many years many consumers didn’t know this. Now the majority of beer drinkers are educated about the life expectancy of IPA in general. You drink IPA as fresh as possible. You drink Raw Ale as fresh as possible. You eat freshly baked bread as soon as possible. Shelf stability ceases to become a concern when the consumer understands how to consume the product properly.
Personally i lie somewhere in the middle. There a difference of muddy and hazy.
Lager should be clear, where as IPA’s i think should have a slight haze. As a home brewer there are many other aspects i worry about before clarity, but that being said i do use gelatin.
I still go a bit fast from grain to glass and all my IPA’s have a slight haze. Don’t care as long as it tastes good and im not picking bits of hop debris off my tongue like an unfiltered cigarette!!!!!!
For me it comes down to: (a) does it smell, taste, & feel good; (b) is the brewer achieving what they intended. I’ve read a good bit of the debate around this point, & what I haven’t found is an explanation of why the beer is “wrong” (read: poorly brewed, matured, etc.) if it meets these objectives.
One of the most amazing exBeeriments to me is the one where you fined an IPA and then compared it with one that wasn’t fined and found people couldn’t tell the difference! I was amazed. I wonder if people are maybe confusing clarity with age? I find that if I don’t fine a hoppy beer, it tastes good until it starts clearing, and then it starts getting less and less hoppy. Maybe it is just aging. I swear it was so obvious when I fined a pale ale that I did though that it tastes much blander hop-wise after fining. I’d like to see more exBeeriments on this issue! Nothing tastes better than a hazy hop-bomb ipa fresh from dry hopping!! 🙂
That’s the beauty of gelatin, it clears a beer quickly, thus reducing the impact of age! More xBmts on the the issue are coming, I promise!
If you hand me a hoppy beer that’s visibly hazy, chances are it’s going to be right in my wheelhouse. These juice bombs with creamy mouthfeel are exactly what I love. There’s nothing wrong with filtered clear beer, but truthfully, I’d rather the haze.
I don’t mean to disrespect your opinion, but I don’t see a basis for saying that hazy corresponds to juicy and creamy. This sounds like the basis for a Xbeeriment!
Oh, it’s totally anecdotal. But when I see a beer that looks like that, more often than not, I know exactly what the brewer was shooting for and I will probably enjoy it a lot.
You know it’s coming!
If I can’t tell the difference in taste, fining for clarity is an extra process I don’t feel like taking on. A hazy beer can look just as beautiful as a clear one in my eyes.
On the homebrew scale, I agree, though I’d still make mine brite for vanity’s sake. But if there’s really no flavor/aroma/mouthfeel difference and commercial brewers still refuse to clear their beer, that seems negligent and, I don’t know, sort of lazy to me. I don’t think this is the case, yet at least, as most brewers making these hazy beers truly believe they are qualitatively different than brite beers.
Maybe the brewers of the hazy beers don’t plan on it lasting very long? Seems like you’d want to make a product with a little bit of shelf life. For me personally a really hazy beer that isn’t a saison or a wheat beer makes me think it’s either really young and I’m about to taste a plug of yeast, or honestly the brewer is lazy. It’s really really easy to clear up a beer. It doesn’t have to be crystal clear, but it shouldn’t look like OJ.
Thank you for the article. I live on the west coast of Canada, so there aren’t any commercial versions of this “Northeast IPA” on our shelves. To remedy that, I tried my hand at brewing my own based on a few recipes I found online: Wyeast London Ale III, lots of oats, lots of hops. I don’t have particulate (yay), but I can’t see my fingers on the other side of the glass. I enjoy the creaminess brought forward by the oats, which are also the likely cause of the haze. It’s a distinct appearance which will likely gain traction as this version of the style grows. IPA has blossomed new interpretations, and that’s great news for brewers and drinkers alike. Brew what you like & drink what you like. I’m just happy that things continue to move forward; it’s exciting.
Check out some of machine ales offerings.
They taste the same. I usually keg half the batch and bottle the other half to give them to my buddy. Drinking them side by side (bottle conditioned being clear) from plastic go cups (kinda blind tasting) makes no difference!
You mean to tell me bottle conditioned beer that was stored warm for an extended time (for carbonation) tastes the same as the same batch that’s been force carbonated and cold the whole time?
I feel like I need to test this, but anecdotally, that seems off to me. I have never had a bottle conditioned IPA with much Hop nose (compared to fresh kegged versions)
With some care, this is absolutely possible on the homebrew scale – I do it all the time. Good dry hopping, closed transfers, CO2 purged bombers, a full fill (almost no headspace), quick capping and getting the bottles cold as soon as they’re done carbonating are key elements.
I have done a variation of that expt a couple of times Ray. Kegged the whole batch and bottled a portion from the fully carbonated keg. Let half the bottles stand warm 3 weeks and the other half kept in the fridge. The difference is very obvious (if you pour them in clear glasses one is visibly darker).
If it’s good beer then I don’t really care what it looks like. Alternatively I’m not going to seek out a beer because it is or is not murky/hazy/turbid/etc. I’m interested in the flavor, aroma and mouthfeel of the beer. My limited experience with this style of pale ale/IPA suggests some of these beers offer a unique perspective on hoppy beers while others are not particularly great and just seem to be adopting poor brewing habits to cash in on the hype of the style. As with any beer we should chase good beer not hype.
Have you seen any of these beers that look creamier than a yeast starter? I take issue with those. But without tasting it, its hard to tell why they appear that way (are they throwing starch in post boil?). I don’t mind chill-haze in the least bit. Yeast in suspension though? Gross.
There is a brewery in Jupiter, FL that makes some appallingly cloudy hoppy beers. They have amazing aroma when fresh, but the flavor is a bit muddled and gets worse after a few weeks.
An error in the first paragraph (I’m being pedantic, but it’s an important point): ClarityFerm is not a “post fermentation” fining agent. It is added at the beginning of fermentation.
Good point…
If you’ve tried Hill Farmstead, Lawson’s, Tree House, Trillium, then you can talk to me. I don’t care if those beers are cloudy or clear. They’re awesome. People just seemed perplexed that an amazing hoppy beer can be cloudy. It’s about mouthfeel, balance, flavor and aroma. If part of the equation is because of the nature of these beers not being crystal clear, then stop fussing over them. I really only hear people on the West Coast complaining about haze, or maybe they’re just jealous? They read about how great these beers are, and seem to get themselves in a tizzy because they’ve never tried them. Then they try ONE beer and deem it terrible, and the hazy “fad” is garbage. It’s really about good beer, and i’m lucky to be close to all of these breweries who are making some amazing stuff. Who cares about shelf stability. Ask Shaun Hill if he cares about stability, he never bottles his hoppy brews. He wants you to take a growler home and drink it fresh because that’s when they’re at their best, and the way he intended them to be enjoyed.
I’ve had Hill Farmstead, it was fine, but I was left wondering why it wasn’t clear.
It’s more a function of late hopping/dry hopping, along with I’m sure some yeast in suspension, but not at insane amounts. I love his beers because they’re perfectly balanced making them very drinkable. He’s a stickler with mouthfeel. It’s full/pillowy, but finishes quickly on the tongue. He doesn’t smack you in the face with bitterness either. Flavor and aroma is the game.
I know it’s all preference, but i’ve had my fair share of crystal clear hoppy beers, and while there have been some that are wonderful I always lean towards something that isn’t clear. It’s just more substantial in my mouth. Softer on the palette.
Because he didn’t want it to be! ☺
In response to “…but I was left wondering why it wasn’t clear.”
I dont know if others had seen Ed Coffeys twitter “reply” to people who think its all yeast
https://twitter.com/ECoffy/status/713916749947736064
While I love both styles, I’ve definitely grown very fond of some of the hazy NE IPAs. I think people should drink what they like! And as others have said before me, these brewers don’t want their beers to get to the point where they are oxidizing on some shelf somewhere. That’s why Hill Farmstead doesn’t bottle hoppy beers. So they all tell you to drink their beers as soon as possible. Because fresh is the best where IPAs are concerned.
I’d love to see a fining vs. no fining exbeeriment done that:
(a) uses the quantity of hop-stand and dry hops that these NE IPAs contain, which in my home endeavors to brew this style equates to like 11-12 ounces per 5-gallons, minimum.
(b) uses a large percentage (say, 15-20%) of flaked grains, an important component in many or perhaps most of these beers, as John wrote.
(c) uses a yeast that isn’t a high flocculator–something more like 1318- or Conan.
A beer with 4-oz. of hops per 5-gal, no flaked grains, and a flocculant yeast isn’t representative of the style that people are talking about when they extol the perceived aroma and mouthfeel of hazy beers.
I applaud that John Wible was willing to step up to the plate and discuss this topic.
He stated: “But properly brewed, hop-forward beers need not be filtered or fined to remove residual protein/hop haze.” I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. He then went on to intimate that by not filtering or fining the result is a hazy beer. That is simply not universally the case. I homebrew a lot of hoppy beers (at least 4-batches a year) and in my homebrewing practice I neither filter or fine (e.g., gelatin). The resulting beers are not 100% crystal clear like a Budweiser but they are not murky or cloudy as the beers pictured in this post. It is definitely possible to produce a hoppy beer without filtering/fining and clearly see your fingers on the back of the glass.
John Wible also stated: “The reality is these styles historically wouldn’t have been brite.” That statement is not true for the ‘original’ IPAs brewed in Great Britain circa 1800. Those beers were extensively aged and the resulting beers would indeed be “brite”. Mitch Steele discussed this in his book IPA.
In Mitch Steele’s IPA book he mentioned: “IPA was aged in wood casks at least nine months before it was shipped to India…”
If you assume a ship passage of 6-months this would ‘translate’ to about 15-months of aging before consumption.
I have consumed many hazy/cloudy/murky hoppy beers from a local brewery: Tired Hands. The murky hoppy beers of Tired Hands are bought and consumed by craft beer drinkers with extreme passion and exuberance. They just started canning their beers a couple of months ago and when they have their weekly can releases at the brewery folks line up for hours before the release time and the beers are all sold out within a few hours of the release time. There is an ongoing thread on BeerAdvocate that is already 33-pages long (and growing): http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/tired-hands-to-can.364330/page-33#post-4647763
The lowest price I have seen posted for Tired Hands beers is $84 for a case of 16-ounce cans with most of their other brands being priced higher than that.
I can’t really comment to whether this sort of extreme exuberance is translatable to other areas of the country (e.g., the West Coast) but this is most definitely a phenomenon in the Northeastern US.
For those who like to learn more about one of Tired Hands hazy beers (HopHands), for your reading pleasure: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-570.379287/#post-4449490
Cheers!
If we look through beer advocates top 250-today
Treehouse has 14-listed
Hill Farmstead has 20-listed
Trillium has 20-listed
Russian River has-7
Alchemist has 2-
Not all are neipa style but they must be doing something right, cloudy or not.
I said it when Pliny held the top spot for years and I’ll say it again: hype has so much to do with top # lists… especially when it’s BeerAdvocate.
Sounds like an easy way to be dismissive towards a beer that helped start a DIPA revolution, and has been ranked amongst the best beers in the world by multiple avenues for over a decade.
Sorta like how people are being dismissive of a beer because its not clear.
They’re fine beers, I’m not dismissing that. To say hype didn’t play a role, driven by intentionally low supply, seems a bit dismissive to me.
Personally I prefer my beers to be clear, I feel like non brewers feel more comfortable trying it if it’s clear. The only hazy beer I had a problem with was a chunky (think cottage cheese) Belgian IPA from a place in Colorado.
So it looks like this xBmt blind tasting is going to have to be truly blind.
They always are truly single-blind, and we always serve the samples in opaque cups. Unless you were referring to something else?
Blindfolds maybe? Even the slightest glimpse of hazy will be enough to set people off. 😉
The beers almost always have a cap of foam on them after we pour, we specifically tell people not to use appearance as a measure of differences, and besides that, hazy and murky beers of a similar color look exactly the same with the white background of the paper cups we use.
I’m firmly on the side of brewers making hazy beers intentionally. I wouldn’t, for example, want you to serve me a crystal clear hefeweizen. If you make a NE IPA with a low-floc yeast, flaked everything, oats, etc., then I’m fine with the haze being part of the sensory experience.
However!
I will say a big fat screw off to the breweries that hide behind the “it’s hoppy and unfiltered!” excuse when I crack open a bottle with half a centimeter of yeasty, hoppy trub at the bottom. You’re either not crashing long enough or trying to squeeze that last little bit out of the tank when packaging, right?
Hazy beers have this very attractive glowing hue to it. especially the pales and saisons from hill farmstead. It just holds the light better. Im all about the hazyness, murky is ugly but damn, those Trillium beers are delicious.
This is a really interesting read. I live in England so have no chance to try a New England IPA (only old England ones). But I’ve read up on the style, hops and yeast used and also the addition of flaked grains and use of calcium chloride in addition or instead of gypsum to help give a softer mouthfeel.
I’ve used inmates flaked grains in many of my beers of all styles for years with no haze.
So recently I made a NE style IPA using English pale ale malt, a small amount of flaked wheat and oats and wyeast 1968 yeast. I treated the water with calcium chloride and gypsum at a ratio of 2:1. Result, hazy beer.
Even using 1968, a notoriously quickly clearing yeast this beer is still cloudy weeks after making it.
Nothing else in my process has changed but the water treatment. The beer is delicious with a creamy soft mouthfeel which I really like but it is cloudy. Not that it bothers me but I’m thinking the water treatment has more to do with the cloudiness in NE IPAs than hops or protein.
Interesting! In my latest water chem xBmt where I treated the same beer with different ratios of CaCl and gypsum post fermentation, the one with a higher proportion of CaCl was hazier. Hmm.
new experiment?
It’s on the list!
I generally brew Scottish ales and stouts, as such if I can see through my beer something went wrong. That said, clear beer is what I usually expect, except if its a weis, if I make it myself or get it at the brewery, I would be okay with a hazy beer, it I have no idea how old it is, I’d like the one I can read the paper through…
I know this is nitpicky, but I take issue with the term “New England IPA”. Harpoon brewing was the first company to coin that term, not these hazy IPAs. A New England IPA has a more assertive malt backbone and darker color, while still maintaining traditional clarity. If you’re going to call a hazy IPA anything, Northeastern IPA is more appropriate. You’re confusing styles with the nomenclature.
Beaujolais nouveau is a wine that has similar suggestions to “drink now”. It is not denigrated for that issue.
“…few would likely disagree that clear beer is far more visually pleasing.” Count me as one of those few, I guess. Strictly aesthetically speaking, I’ve never understood the obsession with putting effort towards crystal clear beer. Clear beer looks good for what it is, but so does hazy beer (real “haze”, not sediment, etc, as has been mentioned). If I were going strictly with aesthetics on their own, all other factors of taste/process/whatever put aside, I think hazy beers are a little more interesting and inviting, personally.
That said, haze isn’t something I strive for or anything like that. At home I just try to make good beer with good processes; I put basically zero effort into appearance. Usually they’re clear, sometimes specific ingredients or processes will end up putting haze in the beer, but I never aim for either. Maybe that reflects bad on me, but it’s just never been a concern of mine, and nobody drinking my beer seems to mind, hah.
This is an older piece and I think in the five years since it was written, the hazy bois have definitely percolated westward. One thing that really bugs me, though, is that it seems like it has become an excuse to not even try for clarity in styles where it is appropriate. If you’re brewing an IPA or a hefe or something, hazy is cool. Really, I think it’s fine if any ale has a little haze to it. But I’m seeing commercial brewers putting out hazy pilsners. And not just once in a while, like “whoops, that batch wasn’t so clear, we’ll do better next one.” I’m talking about a consistent thing from every brewery in town. I can only conclude that they decided it’s just not worth bothering for, or even, “hazy is hip right now, let’s go with the crowd”. But seriously…lagers are supposed to be clear. When I see a pils, helles, etc. that looks hazy, I immediately think lazy, and not just because they rhyme.