Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

It was on the shelf at AH Binnys yesterday afternoon

 

Beer Bazaar in Hainesville. Probably 40 minutes north of you though, may be a bitch much

 

With the 2017 ended and 2018 upon us, I thought briefly about the progress made and the next steps for our NE/DDH/hazy IPA style brews in our region. Chicagoland breweries producing NE/DDH/hazy IPAs have made some significant strides when it comes to quality and selection over the past couple of years, but there are still a couple of issues in my opinion that the regional breweries need to work out to come up to par with New England and east coast breweries producing that style. The two issues are tied together in my mind: 'shelf-life' and regular, weekly caning options.

I've had my fair share of the NE/DDH/hazy offerings from Chicgaoland over the past couple of years and it seems that if the offering can hold up for a month, that's considered a good achievement. We've consistently heard from breweries' staff and brewers themselves that one of the main reasons they don't can these or distribute this style of beer is because they need to be consumed fresh (and another major one that they don't have a canning line, which is a separate issue).

Maybe the two issues that I mentioned are tied together, but basically most of the breweries in New England and that nearby region which are regularly mentioned on Beer Advocate (Tree House, Hill Farmstead, Trillium, Alchemist, Bissell, Other Half, Veil, Aslin, etc) and even smaller ones that we don't normally talk about, are able to offer a relatively wide variety of offerings on a weekly basis and with a shelf life that holds up 6+ weeks in a lot of cases. I just had an In Perpetuity from Tree House a couple of days ago at 2+ months old and it may have been better than when I had it with less than a couple of weeks. I understand Chicagoland breweries not distributing some of these beers to Binny's and other random beer stores because they don't know how they are handled or how long they will sit on shelves, but I would really like to see Corridor, MoRE, Forbidden Root, etc have at least 1-2 options weekly in cans which we can purchase AND have those be able to withstand a month to two months without falling off and tasting overly malty. Right now the one that's coming closest to achieving that is Marz Brewing Co.

My post isn't to say the breweries from New England are better or worse than what's available here… I actually think some of our offerings these days match-up quite well with some of the top tier from New England. It's just to bring up that couple of things I would like to see improved upon in our region, which New England breweries seem to have dialed in, is ability for the NE/DDH/hazy offerings to have a longer shelf life and for those offerings to be available in cans on a weekly basis.

Apologies for the long post.

 

FRs IPAs easily last up to 6+ weeks. Typically drinking better at that point too. But yes I hope they start ramping up canning now that the new head brewer started this past week.

 

Agreed. I had 2+ month old Radio Swan cans a while back. Had fallen off some, but were still quite tasty.

 

Anyone else get this from their Crazy Straw cans? All four were this dark brown mess. Tasted like I put Zombie Dust under a radiator for a couple months.

 

God dammit, I just got home with a four pack of this haven't cracked one yet.

 

Most of the check ins on Untappd I saw looked like dirty swamp water. I passed on Crazy Straws - besides the look, did they taste good at least?

 

Nah, pretty terrible.

 

if anyone is still looking there is a pretty good amount of Hubbard's Cave V10 on the shelf at Binny's Grand and that is a really really good beer.

 

Speaking of disappointing Chicago NE IPA's, I had a Wonderful & Strange from Solemn Oath last night & drainpoured at least half.

Bitter, astringent, lifeless on the fruit/citrus front...a spectacular failure for the style.

Canned 12/21/17, so not old or anything.

 

This is something I don’t know the answer to, but how long did it take those other breweries to get up to the point of having multiple cans available each week? Most of the locals around here have only been at it for a year or so, and some of them also have roots in other styles (FR is botanical, Corridor was more Belgian, etc.). Not sure if that has something to do with it, as well as these places not wanting to commit the finances to the kind of investment that would require 1-2 cans available each week (and whether the market is really there for it). I don’t know that we will ever really know why they decide to take the strategies they do.

 

As much as i dug Crushed Velvet, I thought Crazy Straws was average at best

 

Plus, I'll throw this out there...kinda ganked the name from Corridor Bendy Straw.

@dubo09 care to comment?

 

picked a four pack up on the 4th that was canned on the third i think. it was definitely a dark orange than i was expecting but nothing tasted wrong with it

 

And in that vein, are places like Treehouse really a good example of what we aspire to? Sure they might have multiple cans available each week, but for how long? The day of release? Availability one day a week doesn't really help most people. And having to wait in a long line for it? Not thanks.

Personally I'm tiring on the style- at its best it's my favorite and I could drink them all day, but I'm really sick of getting my hopes up when something comes out and it just isn't as good as the previous batch. Way too many variables- is the brewer not consistent with the recipe, did the distributor give them hops from different batches that aren't consistent, is the beer too green, is the beer to old, etc. etc. It's really maddening.

 

Agree on this for sure. The one thing Treehouse does that I'd like to see more around here is focusing on continually releasing flagship beers. They regularly release their flagships (Julius/Haze ect) but here it seems a lot of breweries make a beer, then the next week make a new beer and keep going but never or rarely seem to loop back around to something that they did previously. It'd be nice to see a little more focus on perfecting something that's good rather than continually jumping around to a new thing....

 

This part is definitely frustrating. This has made me wonder why we don't see some of these breweries really trying to nail one (or two) beers and get it dialed in. I see Mikerphone making so many different NEIPA's...why not just get one to really dial it in? I suppose hops availability has something to do with it, and they kind of seem to do Special Sauce regularly. I think it'd be great if they just had something you could pretty much count on.

 

Were you just inside my head???