Tier Ranking all the NEIPA Breweries

Have you really had so much HOMES to properly judge them and put them in that tier? Not arguing your choices I’m just curious. Cheers.

 

Nope. I should have noted that all "honorable mentions," distinguished and otherwise, are ones I've liked but haven't had enough of a chance to try. Fiden's and Hop Butcher are the standouts among those, and I've liked what I've had from Homes. I hope that makes more sense.

 

Great topic!

Old Nation vs. HOMES… I’ll go Old Nation. HOMES has low bitterness and I prefer a little more bite. None of HOMES I have tried ever blew me away (about 7 different HOMES NEIPAs).

Tier 1
Hill Farmstead - consistently excellent

Tier 2
Parish - great flagship beer
Foam
Bissell Brothers - Swish!!… So good
Monkish - almost always hits all the right notes
Tree House - some newer flavors brought rating down, used to be Tier 1

Tier 3
Other Half - usually good but some so-so
Weldwerks - again, great flagship (& variants of it are great!, but had a couple duds too)
Old Nation - not a large variety but consistent
Trillium - recent ones brought my rating down
District 96 - good from what I’ve tried (maybe should be higher)

Tier 4
Bearded Iris - good but nothing excellent.
Toppling Goliath - love their usual beers but their one offs are usually below standard
Equilibrium - wildly inconsistent but I’ve had some greats
Alchemist - Fallen off with the last couple Focal Bangers I tried (was Tier 1 three years ago)

 

When was the last time Hill Farmstead even brewed an IPA?

 

I haven’t tried a ton of the top brewers stuff but of what I have had, I’d say M43 and Boss Tweed are a small step behind. DDH M43 and ME-MI are right there though. So probably tier 2.
To be fair, Old Nation started brewing traditional German Beer styles. They were good/solid beers but were not allowing the brewery to grow. They then got into NEIPAs and hit a home run with the initial release of M43 and we’re able to dial in the recipe as they scaled up production.
The thing with Old Nation is that they have a few NEIPAs and make a lot of each. They aren’t releasing a new beer every few days. Their NEIPAs have a good shelf life, can be found relatively fresh, readily available, and are normally less expensive than other NEIPA options. Not many other breweries can check all of those last four boxes.

 

Just to finish up my tiers-

Tier 3- Finback, Green Cheek (both of them are criminally underrated and their best hold up to anyone imo.)

Tier 4- Electric, D96, The Answer- although it’s been a while since I’ve had hops from them.

Honorable mention to New Anthem in Wilmington NC. Discovered them randomly on vacation a few years ago and was blown away by their hop game for a brewery that isn’t part of the usual hype list. I’ve seeked them out when passing through since and they’re still consistently good but still under the radar.

 

This thread's done a pretty good job at least mentioning almost every NEIPA-focused brewery on my radar. But Long Live in Providence is legit, definitely a solid tier 2.

 

I'd put Long Live in tier 1 honestly. Blows away Trillium at this point (not all that hard) and hangs with Tree House (which I still prefer but only slightly). I always tell people locally to not bother with Trillium considering Long Live is just a few minutes away.

 

I can't do a Tiers thing. I live in Ohio, and haven't visited the East Coast anytime lately. Most of the breweries on the OP list (and for that matter, most of those discussed) are ones I've never tried.
Of the breweries mentioned (sans one,) the ones I've had NEIPAs from are Old Nation, Bearded Iris, and SingleCut. All are really solid, but imo, there are 2 breweries here in northern Ohio that make far superior NEIPAs/2xNEIPAs/3xNEIPAs. Namely C.L.A.G. in Sandusky, Ohio, and Masthead in Cleveland. For Masthead, look out for (in order) Dreamcrusher, Hollow Earth, Flat Earth, Extra! Extra! and Paper Boy. All are outstanding, imo. C.L.A.G. tends to not brew the same recipes with any kind of regularity, but I would say just look out for almost anything brewed by this brewery, as it really is special. (And was mentioned above.) Specific beers? Phorari, Craysian, CLAG To The Future II. There's a pretty long list actually. Sometimes they don't call them NEIPA, but when you pour them...they can't hide.