Juiciest West Coast IPA?

If you shop at Cable Beverages in Rockland County NY you may get lucky some time. I got that Alpine Nelson there, plus some of the Rushing Duck IPAs like Pay 2 Play seem to be in that style as well.

I usually get the VT beers through my brother, so those aren't available around here.

 

I think the problem with fining methods is that if you plan to do it after dry hopping with yeast in suspension in order to get that hop/yeast interaction, you could be losing out on volitile oils through time lagering and use of finings. Every time I've had one of these beers they've been within weeks of keging and are very fresh. I've never had one of these beers in a bottle so I can really judge how they would look if given time to drop out in cold storage.

I think their should be a distinction between typical hop haze and what is seen in the NE influenced beers, which I think the hop/yeast interaction is key more so than things like adjuncts. Simpleton for example is 100% base malt.

Anyways, I'm no expert just really curious on what's going on with these beers and I don't think it's as simple as being too lazy to clear the beer. It seems by design, because I really think they have their own unique character that may be lost when going for clarity.

 

I just came here to say that I'm tired of seeing of those black, white, and orange/yellow doctored photos of beers. You can take a picture of a pile of shit and make it look pretty with enough filters and color palette manipulation. Passing these photos around here as if they represent the beer is simply dishonest.

 

Completely agree, while I do quite like the taste of the Trillium beers I've been fortunate enough to sample, their appearance was nothing like most of the doctored pics that get posted up here.

As far as the OP'S question, closest I've had in CA was the passion fruit XPA from Honey Wagon in Tehachapi. For those mentioning Half Hitch, it's got the juicy elements in the taste but doesn't have the same degree of soft mouthfeel in my opinion.

 

Randy, I agree 100% with you here.

I really wish those folks would stop doing this.

@chipawayboy

Cheers!

Jack

 

I like the photos as impressionist art (you got a good eye, Chip!), but, yeah, some of them clean up the aesthetics a bit much.

Prob also worth saying that not all haze -- and, uh, "juiciness" -- is the same. Alpine (the stuff from the pub) puts out hazy beer that one might sometimes call juicy, but that's a different sort of haze than Trillium. Heck, Trillium haze is arguably rather different than Hill Farmstead or Tree House, though. There was a pretty entertaining thread in the NE subforum where a brewer from HF took some shots at the haze levels of Trillium brews, so clearly he sees a difference. I can't say I understand it all well enough to speak to it, other than to say I've had some hazy beer I like and some I don't. I will say that, in the case of Heady, the best cans I've had have been pleasantly hazy rather than muddily turbid. OTOH, I had a bottle of Trillium Fort Point Pale Ale that was ghastly looking but delicious, while a cleared up dry hopped version looked much better but wasn't near as good as the muddy one. I dunno. The only obvious thing to do is to keep drinking!

 

If this is in response to me, I'll bite. Having a background in graphic design and photo editing it's impossible for me not to color correct and sharpen. If anything what I did brought the photos to what the beer looked like in person, and the adjustments were very minimal. No smoke and mirrors, they really do look that good...

Originals:

 

Agreed. I'll give an artist their artistic license to modify a photo to fit their artistic vision, but I feel like too often these sorts of photos on this site are shared with intent to represent/misrepresent the beer, not as art.

No, that was not directed at you personally. There's certainly more people than just you doing/sharing these sorts of photos. I appreciate your response though.

Also I might just be a grumpy nit-picker about these sorts of things... for what it's worth I also criticize the obsession Hollywood and to a lesser degree photographers have with the blue and orange color palette (warning to everyone: reading the linked article may forever taint your ability to watch any modern movie!)

 

IMO you are not a "grumpy nit-picker". Folks who post doctored photographs are indeed not being honest in my opinion.

Cheers!

 

I think the "juicy" ipa is what New England breweries are focused on right now. It's all I drink. Alpine just came into the state (Massachusetts) quite recently.Not that we don't get plenty of west coast Ipas that arent good. I had a DUET for the first time and was blown away. It was just a nice change of pace from a Juicy New England ipa. It was packed full of that piney,resiny, west coast hoppiness that got me into Ipa's in the first place. I love IPAS. The more different,and wide range of flavors from brewery to brewery,and coast to coast is why I drink em!

 

Editing can certainly go overboard, but I'd make the case that posting a picture of a beer with shitty lighting, blurryness and pixelation is an even poorer representation of the beer.

Adjusting brightness/contrast, highlights/shadows, levels, and sharpness isn't exactly doctoring, it's just good photo editing practices.

 

I agree. I'm more bothered by the blatant color palette manipulation. I looked back at your photos just now and I don't think you went overboard.

 

That is what bothers me too and IMO using the term of "doctoring" fully applies here.

Cheers!

 

Huh.. weird, because in my opinion TH, Trillium, OH and don't hold up against Cellarmaker. Maybe you went on a bad day.

 

After my trip to Maine, some of the juicest IPA's are from New England. West Coast seems to tend more to a dank aroma.

 

Had Alpine Nelson last night and thought it was pretty damn juicy -- I was surprised, I thought this guy would have a more classic West Coast IPA taste profile. I'd also throw in my bid for Mega Fortunate Islands.

 

Ha, it just seemed to be taking a weirdly serious turn.

For the record, I kind of like the edited photos. Given how absurd it is that we take pictures of glasses of beer we're drinking, running them through a filter seems perfectly "normal."

 

For these "juicy" unfiltered IPAs we're discussing, there are many people who would rather the beer be filtered than the photos of the beer.

 

Still need to try that. And Artaic. Both have eluded me whenever they've been released.