Non-Hazy IPAs That Get Hype?

Great non hazy IPAs, Headhunter, JuJu, Bodhi, Two Hearted Ale, Fresh Squeezed when super fresh. Any number of Buriel beers too, Jade, Pernicious, all a bit different but all are superb.

 

Curiously, do you understand why hazy beers are hazy?

 

To answer the question - not many. Melvin for sure. The Plinys still carry a lot of weight with casual beer fans. Maybe some of the finalists in the Alpha King challenge for those who know. That's pretty much it for "hype." That doesn't mean places like Comrade, Bosque, and La Cumbre aren't killing it, though. Right now haze is just really big. Give it time and you might see that change. It wasn't long ago when nearly every IPA was a deep red and packed to the gills with nothing but early addition Cascade, CTZ, and Chinook.

 

I would agree that we all judge the book by its cover, but I personally still think grey, turbid, murky beer with no head looks gross, even if I know from experience that it is delicious. In my opinion, the best looking beer is one that is profoundly hazy with a nice light golden color and some head on top. Something that you can't read through, but still allows some light to pass through it.

That, to me, conveys that it is full of flavor, but light, crisp, and balanced, with lively carbonation. That is opposed to murky beers, which I expect to be heavy, sweet, and lowly carbonated based on appearance alone. Actual experience may vary.

 

English IPA's are traditionally more balanced and not as hop-forward as American IPA's. They are indeed distinct from Pale Ale's

 

there's so many great beers out now, IPA or otherwise, that hype is getting very hard to come by. Unless a brewer makes a very limited amount. Even a lot of these massive barrel aged stouts aren't garnering the hype they once did a few years ago

 

Agreed. I don't think many of the New England style IPAs (from New England) look murky. I was referring more to this...

 

I think very large percentages of unmalted grains, especially oats, tend to cause the murky appearance. In my understanding, the "classic" New England IPA brewers use unmalted adjuncts sparingly, if at all. Their abuse appears to be a way invented by other breweries later to make beers hazy (or murky) on purpose, rather than as a side effect of the process. Of course, they work well for getting a softer mouthfeel as well, so who's to say which way is "right"? As long as the turbidity isn't yeast in suspension, I think we can chalk it up to "different strokes."

Personally, I think a bit of rye works best.

 

Although this is true for people that actually know beer, the hype-train is still a very real thing for a decent amount of people.

 

That is . . . umm . . . photoshopped. It actually looks more like this:

 

How about these?

 

I guess I'm just jaded and would rather drink something that I don't have to spend a days worth of wages on a beer

 

That's not jaded. That's smart. Lots of great beer out there that you don't have to wait on queue for OR take out a second mortgage to afford OR hire a homeless dude in another city to mule beer for you.

 

Have none of you heard of PLINEY?!?!?!?

 

Your right . Most of the beers that I looked for and anticipated with massive hype when I was younger never met their goal even though they were world class beers

we all have heard of pliny the elder and younger and even those beers don't hype me up like they used to

 

I'm thinking, or at least hoping, that he was joking.

 

The Pliny beers have a lot of buzz among casual drinkers. Kind of like "that monk beer from Belgium" does. That doesn't necessarily come across on beer sites or forums like this and I don't know if I'd call it hype. It's more like infiltration of mainstream society.

 

I don't know what its like at the brewery in Santa Rosa, but I overheard an employee at Bottlecraft in San Diego say PtE sells out usually in about an hour of them receiving the shipment. That's at $7-8 per pint-sized bottle, limit one per person. Maybe that's a product of the small supply rather than truly high demand, but it seems like it's still pretty hyped. I also had it on tap at Pizza Port, and they served it in a special Russian River glass. Seems like an odd thing to do for a beer that doesn't get hype.

But I agree, it definitely doesn't get talked about as much on these forums anymore. Maybe it is average Joes catching on a little late.