Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

Definitely seems like the lesser known stores that carry their other beers got screwed over on Galaxy Bowl. If I was a beer buyer who got completely looked over while larger accounts got 10 plus cases I would be a little hesitate to carry their next release. Granted, I'm sure there wasn't a crazy amount to go around but Mikerphone who also brews out of a borrowed space seems to be fairly distributed no matter the hype. Speaking of Mikerphone. Special Sauce 8 is getting bottled tomorrow. Guaranteed available everywhere Mikerphone is sold.

 

Blind taste test of:
Trillium galaxy dry hopped fort point
RAM juicy
Treehouse Julius
Hop Butcher Galaxy Bowl

All Canned within the last 2 weeks.
All rated 4.25+ to me
This taste test is splitting hairs, but still fun to do!





My overall preference from the blind taste test (note: I prefer citra hop over galaxy hop):
RAM juicy
Treehouse Julius
Hop Butcher Galaxy bowl
Trillium dry hopped fort point

I was completely surprised by my preferences when label and availability weren't taken into consideration.

All were excellent!

Looking forward to more chicago area NEIPAs

P.S. Treehouse Juice Machine was better than all of these.

 

I was thinking of doing Galaxy Bowl, Juicy, Special Sauce #8 (assuming I get some tomorrow) and Juicy v4 this weekend blind. That's all I have available now, so it'll be fun to do.

 

I did Juicy back-to-back with Galaxy Bowl tonight. I preferred the flavor/hop profile of Juicy over GB, but if you are looking for the closest "juice bomb" (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) to a NE IPA, I really think Galaxy Bowl nailed the overall experience. But both were very, very good. I would recommend both and I think it really comes down to personal hop preference as to which one someone would enjoy more.

 

Thanks for posting the details on side by sides guys! As someone who can't find this stuff before it is scooped up, it is nice to see what is worth looking for and what isn't.

For whatever reason I didn't realize Juicy was in cans (Even though I now realize people talked about the 4 packs), I'm impressed that RAM has (or has access to) a canning line.

 

I noticed they were a big chain, that's why I thought they were hand filling bombers. They must send the beer from the brewpub off site to a local contractor for packaging. No way they have a canning line in a brew pub....

 

I really wish Spiteful would put out something in this style...I love their DIPAs and feel like they would follow suit accordingly.

 

Out of town this week for work so looks like I'll be totally shut out on GB unless some kind soul out there has a single extra can

 

FWIW Hopbutcher is saying more GB is on its way out on Twitter. They told someone think South and West. Also had mentioned Standard Market earlier.

 

You will be seeing cans. They made 1 canning run and had issues and have been working to get them resolved ever since. I've heard we can expect to see their beers in cans within a few months.

Maybe it's the haze hype, but if a beer as decent is SoJ is highly disappointing to you, then you are living a pretty awesome life.

Charlatan is a really good pale ale.

 

To play devil's advocate, in today's beer world "decent" doesn't really cut it.

 

I think it's all subjective. SoJ may be disappointing to @FBarber , but I found it to be enjoyable. If it were in cans would I look to it? Sure.

Also, we don't really know if a "solid" beer like SoJ does cut it or not...I could argue that most of Half Acre's regular beers are just solid (except for the newly "regular" Navaja, which is well above solid), but they seem to be doing just fine. Same with Revolution IMO. If you can get those solid beers (Daisy Cutter, Anti-Hero) to be regulars that appeal to the locals that aren't nerds like us, I would venture to say it's profitable. But...they have a long way to go before reaching the size of Half Acre or Revolution.

 

To echo my post above somewhat, I don't know that us beer nerds are really driving their bottom line. They need regular beers that get into the "casual" craft beer drinker, at least that's what it seems like to me. We may not buy much Daisy Cutter, but I'm guessing that's a big part of Half Acre's business.

I guess my point is that we beer nerds/snobs are just a small portion of the beer drinking community.

 

I had my first Nimbus last night and liked it much better than Stratus (I had them b2b last night but it was the 3rd can of Stratus for me). One thing that's readily apparent - Stratus is not hazy, Nimbus definitely is. The haze doesn't necessarily define the taste, but I enjoyed the hop profile in the Nimbus pale ale much more than the stronger IIPA.

The thing I thought worthy of commenting was that I think these beers are much more comparable with the types of IPAs coming out of Vermont (bitterness is hidden) as opposed to the ones coming out of Massachusetts (juicy as hell).

 

Unexpectedly scored Special Sauce 8 and Son of Juice last night. I was impressed with Son of Juice. Extremely drinkable, restrained but, bright juice flavor, had a slight grainy flavor which used to plague Half Acre in their first few years, smells like grains, was crisp and smooth reminding me very much of the really tasty Grimm Artisan Ale IPAs/pales though they have a bit of bitterness or lemony tang to them which this could have used a bit of to make it more complex while still maintaining the awesome balance.

As expected, the Special Sauce didn't do it for me. At 8.5% it definitely tasted like an alcohol laden DIPA and those aren't my style, but I completely get why people appreciate the flavor in this. I'm happier in the pale or ipa abv range and look forward to more stuff done in the style of the Hill Farmstead/Grimm NE-style IPAs and Pales. The future is bright my friends, bright with haze!