Northeast Pales/IPA/DIPA

Didn't realize you were on here Ed. Thanks for the info dude!!

 

All my local shops carry whitelabs and not wyeast. The London 3 yeast sounds great! What would be the best option as a substitute? Reading the description on WhiteLabs we page there doesn't seem like a perfect match. I usually use the Chico strain for my hoppy beers but would like to try something else out.

 

Ed,

Do you have an opinion on how Trillium achieves the murky appearance of their hoppy beers given that @JCTetreault posted:

· “We use a very flocculant strain!’

· “Re: unmalted/raw/flaked adjunct...we don't use that in every hop forward beer. Actually, a relatively small % of our hop forward beers contain them.”

Cheers!

 

I dabble here from time to time, but not all that often. I just noticed traffic come from the thread.

I haven't found a WLP equivalent that will give you the London 3\Conan character. If you can mail order one of those two I think thats really your best option. If not, I am sure you local shops carry S-04, Ive had really good success with that strain in these types of beers in a pinch. A version of my HopHands clone I shared with Jean used S-04 actually. https://twitter.com/tiredhandsbeer/status/441972881845919744

I've not had any of their beers, although I would like to, so I dont know if I can really say one way or another. Are all of their beers cloudy like Tired Hands?

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

How many words is a video worth!?!

Go to 3:30.

Trillium Congress Street IPA looks just like the Tired Hands Lambos & Mansions (Galaxy IPA) that I drank last evening.

Cheers!

 

My GAWD that's cloudy...

 

And apparently some folks like it that way as evidenced by posts in this thread.

Do you want to know how to homebrew your beers to look like that?

Cheers!

 

@JackHorzempa

Jack. Was that galaxy beer from Tired Hands good?

 

I thought it had very good flavor. I was less than thrilled with the excessive murkiness of that beer.

Since it appears that you like murky I would highly recommend this beer to you.

Cheers!

Edit. My wife took a sip of this beer and commented: "Your homebrewed Galaxy IPA is better." I agree with my wife.

 

Oh, I can make some murky beers... I heard on an internet forum to use London 3...

 

Pretty cloudy,

Pretty cloudy, looks familiar. I dont know anything about their process so I couldn't really say.

Its not that I like cloudy beer, Ive brewed some of these and felt they were too cloudy. Its just that it doesnt bother me, and I see it as a necessary evil to achieve certain characteristics in the type of hoppy beers that I enjoy.

 

What are the specific characteristics that you think that cloudiness provides in hoppy beers? Why do you think these same characteristics could not be achieved in a non-cloudy beer?

Cheers!

 

Let me preface my following statements with I think many beer styles benefit from clarity and I do steps in my process to ensure crystal clear beer for certain styles. (German lagers, kolsch, cream ale, etc.)

Why I like hazy hoppy beers and why they are gaining popularity IMO.

1.) The hazy appearance often gives the drinker the mindset of pineapple juice, orange juice, and fruit juice in general. So before even tasting the beer you are positioned mentally to think, "damn, this beer looks juicy as hell".
2.) In general I would say these beers are primarily heavily whirlpool hopped and dry hopped leading to a fully saturated hop flavor and bursting hop aroma with a gentle smooth bitterness.
3.) Mouthfeel. These beers in general tend to have a full silky almost creamy mouthfeel which again leads the drinker back to the fruit juice mindset that the beers appearance laid a foundation for. Obviously flaked grains are helping out with this.
4.) Taste. The bitterness of these beers is very rounded ( in general) making for an easy drinking experience. So many IPAs out there today are just crushingly bitter and sharp and pointed. This rounded bitterness I like in these hazy hoppy beers probably has something to do with water chemistry as well. Probably some higher CaCl levels as opposed to CaSo4.

These are just some of my personal thoughts on what a hazy hoppy beer brings to the table vs a clear one.

 

Yea. Insanely high hopping rates is something I left out and agree with. My friend that turned me on to this yeast often dry hops his 5 gallon batches of 5-7% abv hazy hoppy beers with 5-10 oz's depending on gravity. That's a lot more than I used to use.

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond with your thoughts.

Some of my comments using your numbering scheme:

1. While the murky appearance may ‘inspire’ some beer drinkers to think “juice” what it does to other drinkers (such as myself) is provide the appearance of a poorly crafted beer.

2. Beers that are generously late hopped can be produced with a non-murky appearance. For somebody (whether that somebody is a homebrewer or a beer drinker) to think that a beer needs a murky appearance in order to be generously late hopped is simply not the case.

3. While the murky beers from Tired Hands (and others) may have a pleasant mouthfeel so do hoppy beers from other brewers which are not murky in appearance. In other words it is not a requirement that a beer be murky to have a silky mouthfeel. I brew many beers that have a silky mouthfeel and not one of those beers are murky.

4. Again, a murky appearance is not required to produce a beer that is not crushingly bitter and sharp. I agree that the Tired Hand beers are not crushingly bitter and sharp but a brewer could achieve those same qualities without the beer being murky.

I have yet to read anything from anybody which justifies the need for a murky appearance to achieve certain qualities in a hoppy beer.

Cheers!

 

It occurs to me that some, perhaps most, of the best APAs/IPAs right now are hazy. Whether they actually need to be hazy or not, they are certainly not poorly crafted. Do you think they don't look exactly how their brewers intend?

It also seems to me that anyone bothered by the haze, with the possible exception of OCD sufferers, should be able to get past their initial aversion, because these beers taste, smell and feel great.

 

@JackHorzempa I'll continue using the number scale since it is working out so nice.

1). So a beer that has clarity is more well crafted? I could have my 2 year old drop a whirlfloc into the kettle, or sprinkle some biofine/gelatin in the keg or just let the keg sit cold for a few weeks to produce a clear beer. Making a clear beer is certainly not difficult. I would argue that making a beer with a haze that can stick around for weeks maybe even months in a cold keg is much more crafty and takes much more thought.
2). I agree any beer can be generously late hoped. I never said that all hazy beers are heavily hopped and that's why they are hazy.
3). I've never experienced a beer with the same mouthfeel as a tired hands or hill farmstead hoppy beer in one that is clear. If you have a clear hoppy beer of your own that has the same qualities as these beers well done.
4). I never said that clear beers can't have the same bitterness profile. I was merely trying to describe why so many people that drink tired hands hoppy beers like them.

 

This is a perfect way of putting it. I think similar beers still taste great after dropping clear but I'm not going to start sitting on Tree House or Trillium for weeks until they look nicer. At the end of the day appearance doesn't mean that much to me, though I appreciate an impressively clear beer too.