Bell’s Official Hazy IPA now available

Had a couple pints of this. Not bad. Didn't exactly blow my pants off, but I enjoyed it enough to order another.

 

Had it, didn't like it that much... Hazy Little Thing is a better choice if picking between the larger, distro breweries for a 'hazy'.

 

Interesting share, if you’ve been in any grocery or liquor store in the last month you’ve seen this on the shelf.

 

A thread for this?

 

I may have had it in a strange spot in my session initially, but it didn’t really float my boat. Just didn’t have enough punch and tasted a tad watery.

Since I’m not a big fan of typical milky and rich mouthfeel and flavor of modern hazy styles, I thought I would appreciate this one. But I tried and tried, and it didn’t work for me. Still have much respect for Bell’s, but I probably won’t be buying it again.

 

Kind of my thoughts as well. I think Sierra Nevada and Firestone Walker are the 2 I’ve been drawn to from this new hew England lite category. Brew dog isn’t bad either.

 

While 12 packs are Michigan only, the other formats are nationwide per the Bell's site. This post should likely be moved to the Beer News & Releases forum instead of Great Lakes.

 

I thought it was straight up garbage. Bland, no pungency on the nose, watery, low bitterness, a tad sweet. Just anodyne. These widely produced 'hazy' IPAs are uniformly mediocre imo.

 

Sounds like you don’t like the style.

 

The NE fare put out by HF, Tree House, OH, SARA, Finback, Tired Hands, Monkish, Homage, Northern Monk, Pure, The Veil, Alvarado St, Moonraker, and a few others are some of my favorite beers in the world. I just don't think any of the mass produced ones are nearly as good. I just think the style is done well by relatively few breweries.

This is not something that generally holds for WC IPAs imo; the gap between, say, Noble Ale Works and the stuff from El Segundo, Beachwood, seasonal Lagunitas, or others that you get even at a Whole Foods is not nearly as wide.

 

I much rather have fresh Two Hearted.

That said, thankfully there are some well done hazy NE style IPA's available locally.

 

I really liked it. It’s very crisp. If you’re looking for a juicy beer, this is not for you, but I see this being a go to summer beer for me.

 

I personally have not tried Bell’s Official Hazy IPA yet but I would be willing to bet this is one reason why some folks expressed displeasure with this beer. A lot of folks when they read "Hazy IPA" have an expectation for a 'NEIPA' type beer with the qualities of "juicy" and a soft/velvety mouthfeel. I am sure that the folks of Bell's are aware of this and perhaps they should (or will?) do a better job marketing this specific product.

Cheers!

 

This beer is good man, honestly worth a try. Just go into it objectively, and you will see the vision.

 

And what would you say "objectively" constitutes for this beer? For example, should I expect it to be like a Tired Hands hoppy beer?

Cheers!

 

I compared it to it's peers: "Two Roads Two Juicy > Bell's Official > Stone Fear: Movie: Lions > Sam Adams NEIPA > New Belgium Voodoo Juicy Haze > Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing" I'd love to blind test myself and see if these results held, but I'm impressed with every beer here outside New Belgium and Sierra Nevada.

 

I too would be interested in this. Maybe you could do this for a New Beer Sunday post?

Cheers!

 

That requires me to actively stop buying new beers every single time I walk into local shops. I'm too big a fan of the unknown I'll probably end up picking up the Firestone Haze though!

 

My tastes agree with this ^^^

Official is not a NEIPA, and I like good NEIPAs more.