Tier Ranking all the NEIPA Breweries

This surprises me. I've loved most of their IPAs since first trying them a few years back. They do have tend to have that earthier, resinous quality I'm sure turns more people who are looking for the more tropical NEIPAs off, though.

 

not mine? I'm hurt.

 

Do you have details on the expansion?

 

Although it annoys me slightly because HF seems to be great at everything, Ephraim & Abner can hang with any of the best neipa’s in the world.

 

So. Annoying.

I will dispose of cans (or bottles) of anything HF, if folks want to send them to me. Cans will be recycled, and beer will be used to re-hydrate the Earth.

Beautiful photos.

 

Yeah, I’m not really sure it’s debatable that HF was one of the first to define a core neipa. Maybe I’m way off.

 

Not really, but the drop came around the time they opened the SC location.

 

Hello please mail me hill farmstead beer ok bye.

 

Something between doughy and bready, pretty basic really but the ones that lack any malt structure feel flabby

 

I have honestly never even thought about the malt in a neipa. Maybe I'll have to get one to try again soon and pay it some attention.

Are they typically brewed with pale malt? Some specialty malts?

 

I've never looked into brewing my own but I think it's mostly a pale malt base highlighted with trace amount of specialty malts. Simple, but nice when done right

 

There has always been what seems to be a weird culture around Hazy IPA's almost since they first came out with people thinking of tiers and ranking them with breweries being deemed to be head and shoulders above others. Meanwhile, in most states that I've been to it's easy to find multiple examples that can stack up to the highest acclaimed breweries. In our state alone (Arizona) Wren House won a gold medal for hazy IPA at GABF beating hundreds of others do get the gold. Pueblo Vida brews beers that are more like Hill Farmstead with a softness and delicacy to them. And as much as I hate tooting my own horn, we sent every beer for 2 years that we brewed at Tombstone Brewing out to tasting panels in Boston, Denver, LA, and Chicago to compare to the most hyped breweries and we had 3 rankings for each one. First one was completely blind. Second tasting was knowing what breweries were included, but not know who brewed which one. Third tasting was being told what each beer was. We would not release any results at all until after the third tasting. This is, in my opinion, a very important tasting exam for breweries like us because we can get caught up in thinking our beer is great or we can get down on ourselves if the local market bashes a beer… this helps to validate opinions.

Participants were asked after the first tasting to list which they expected to be the best from top to bottom. Early on in those tastings, we were almost always last in the "expected" category, of course in flights with Treehouse, Trillium, Weldworks, etc. that's to be anticipated since they have the name recognition. In the blind tasting, we were normally in the top 3 in flights of 8. In the second tasting, people were supposed to guess which brewery brewed what and the results were all over the map and we would frequently be at the bottom. When people knew what they were drinking, it was a crazy phenomenon... The Boston based panel would always say the Denver and LA breweries were best while bashing their hometown breweries and the LA and Denver based panels would praise the Boston breweries while bashing their hometown. It was very obvious that the novelty of getting the out of state, harder to find stuff was very beneficial. We hear this all the time in our AZ beer pages where a contingent of local customers claims there’s no good breweries in AZ while they rave about beers from other breweries that get bashed by that locality.

Carry on with the list I suppose, it does seem like it’s part of the fun for people to do this, and at the end of the day you should enjoy the way you want to, but the lists just really don’t mean much.

 

Tier 1- Troon. That’s it. Imho they 100% justify the hype and are in a class of their own.

Tier 2- R&B, Monkish, Fidens(only have tried a few of theirs and they’ve been mixed imo but their best was in line with the others.

 

It’s a welcome change of pace when someone shows up to the conversation with intelligence, first-hand experience, and facts.

 

All great points, I think the fact that, for example, tree house and hill farmstead were founded and brewing neipa style beers before every brewery you mentioned, speaks something about why people place breweries where they do.

 

On a homebrew level NEIPA uses pale malt or pilsner malt as a base, sometimes honey malt or GNOs as well, but there is always something like flaked wheat, flaked oats, or flaked barley in the grist to get those protein levels up. Mine usually utilized wheat and pilsner malts.

 

usually it’s mostly base malt of choice (2 row/pils often, occasionally some use MO/golden promise) + protein rich grains like oats and/or wheat. Some breweries like to use a touch of honey malt or light crystal malts. Trillium actually lists all the malts used for their beers on their website if you want more info (including the info for their “freaky Friday” recipe swap beers).

 

Narrow Gauge Brewing Company lists the hops and malts used in each of their beers on their website as well. Might be interesting to browse through if you're curious what sort of malts go into a NE IPA (or any of their other beers, for that matter.)

@unlikelyspiderperson

 

Each brand of Juicy/Hazy IPA will have their own unique grain bill but most of them will

And add wheat malt and oat malt to that list. All of these malts and flaked grains are higher in protein on a per unit weight basis as compared to barley malt.

Cheers!

 

Tier I (best of the best):
Hill Farmstead: No comment necessary.
Troon: I wish this wasn't the case given their distribution model, but it is.
Tree House: Tales of their death have been exaggerated. I find their recent output muddies together, but it's still among the best.
Monkish
Parish

Tier II (sort of ranked and ranging from "just barely out of the top tier" to "decent"):
Other Half: Wish they didn't tend to deviate so much from location to location, because their NYC stuff was top tier for sure.
Tired Hands: More familiar with these than any. They've had dips over time, but have recently hit some home runs.
Root & Branch: Lots of decent BIG options.
Bissell: Clean. Fine. Dependable.
Trillium: Gone downhill, but not as much as the below.

Tier III (not quite so good, but somehow still prominent names):
Great Notion: Haven't been impressed by anything they've put out.
Veil: How far they've fallen.
Aslin: Stop.
Equilibrium: Something is wrong here. Unless you like melted lollipops.

Distinguished Honorable Mentions (ones I've been very impressed by, but haven't had enough to properly judge):
Hop Butcher
Fiden's

Honorable Mentions (worth mentioning):
Finback
Vitamin Sea
Homes
Tilted Barn