Juiciest West Coast IPA?

Ok cellarmaker's new pale ale killed by death is incredibly timely...about as close to what the op is looking for as it gets.

 

I think the bolded part is essentially what @bulletrain76 has been saying, if you boil it all down.

I recently had an Alpine Nelson, which certainly seems to fit the standard that we are talking about here. I would describe that beer as hazy and not turbid, because I held it up to the light and didn't see any suspended material. It also had a very clear flavor profile, despite the haze. A lot of what I've seen posted here, and even some beers I've experienced myself, sure seem like they could at least be 'cleaned up' to that degree.

I'm thinking that next time I have a Heady I'll see if I can arrange a blind triangulation test with it decanted vs. the settled part, and see if it's as obvious to me as it was last time.

 

That's all well and good, but 'juicy' has already been in use to describe hoppy beers of a different sort since the early 2000s.

 

Juicy IPAs are dead. Long live juicy IPAs!

 

The question is, will we ever see a West Coast IPA marketed as "East Coast-Style," after years of seeing the opposite. Hope this happens, if only for the LOL.

 

Was gonna suggest they really start being labeled "Northeast IPAs", but then I remembered folks like Westbrook have been making these beers for a couple years now (and, for my money, One Claw and IPA are some of my favorite versions of the "style")!

East Coasters get West Coast IPAs. West Coasters can start getting East Coast IPAs. And No Coasters can continue to feel forgotten. It's a win for everyone

 

Cellarmaker is doing it right now. They also distinguish some of their beers as "West Coast" when they have that typical pine/citrus profile. Most of their regular beers are somewhere in between the two styles. I'd consider what they are doing the "new" West Coast, while New England style is the "new" East Coast.

 

I posted earlier: "Folks like to utilize a descriptor of "juicy" but without an explicit and unambiguous definition of what this descriptor means it is extremely challenging to have a meaningful conversation here."

Do you have an "explicit and unambiguous definition" for juicy IPAs? I would also like to add the aspect of "universally accepted" as well. If you have something that meets these criteria I would like to read it.

Cheers!

 

Right and just what flabby mean in wine or chewy mean in a beer?

 

I gave my best shot on previous pages. Honestly, arguing with you all is exhausting and I'd rather just call them Unambiguous IPAs (or some other unconnected to beer or flavor term that isn't regional in nature).

 

Love your posts and your handle, man.

 

Flabby actually has a specific meaning: low in acid. As in "that juicy wine was too flabby."

 

I do think yeast is important for hop aroma, both in biotransformation of hop oil, and in the synergistic effects of yeast esters and hop oils. I don't think the presence of the yeast in the finished product has a significant influence on how this character is presented. As far as creating a stable haze in dry-hopped beer, this is a protein-tannin complex formed from hop tannins interacting with grain proteins. Even stubborn yeast strains will drop out with enough time. Now if you don't do anything to your beer that promotes clarification (lagering, fining, centrifugation, filtration) you can package it with excessive yeast the can be agitated and served with the beer. I think there is some combination of the two going on in most muddy IPAs.

As far as comparing RR and SARA, I think their processes are much more similar than you might think, and the only significant difference is that Pliny is fined or filtered and Simpleton is not. Other than that, SARA typically is bittering to a much lower level than RR. Pliny is pretty hazy before filtration, as are a lot of clear IPAs. I think that this turbidity trend is as much about brewers stylistically shunning clarification than any new aspect of recipe formulation.

 

this one !

 

I can't believe I wasted my time reading through this

 

Totally agree and glad to see you stepped back from your charge they do it to save money. I don't think that you can fine/filter a beer without changing its degree of hoppiness, type of hoppiness, and other features that may contribute beneficially to its overall flavor profile.

As far as waiting for yeast and other particulates to drop out on their own, I believe it has more to do with maximizing results from all the efforts used to coax every hop flavor and aroma through knockout additions, whirlpool/hopstands, and dry hopping than it has to do with trying to recoup money spent on hops by rushing product to market. In this case freshness is everything, that aroma you worked so hard to achieve decreases every day you wait for the yeast to fall. Right?

Even if it was originally, as you say, an accidental discovery that turbid , mostly late addition IPA can be made to taste amazing, it now is a technique that produces the finest IPA in the history of the world in mine and many folks' opinions. I disagree that these beers can be improved by causing or waiting for the yeast etc. to fall completely.

Again, just my .02.

 

Would love for JC at Trillium to chime in on this, but he has said before that they did not set out to make turbid, cloudy beers. That they tried fining them and found that it altered the beer dramatically from what they were seeking and so they simply sell them as they are.

 

Thanks, now that i think about it i did know that. Since you live in North NJ are there ant Juicy IPAs that are easy to find at retail. I haven't seen any of the beers mentioned here for sale.

 

Thanks for adding this professional's explanation, it confirms what my home brew club has also found to be true.

 

Wait in line with the rest of us at the breweries