Northeast Haze through a microscope

It definitely seems to be a tradeoff in my experience as well; clarity of flavors for mouthfeel and possibly intensity. I just wonder why it's not thought of in that way.

 

Michael, take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.

Based upon my readings of numerous posts by the exuberant fans of the so called New England (Northeast) IPA they seem to perceive a quality they call "juicy" with these sorts of beers. I am personally not 100% sure what the word "juicy" constitutes here since from my perspective there are lots of various juices which are all different to my palate; apple juice is different from orange juice and they are both different from cranberry juice and ...

I would be curious to see these folks participate in a blind tasting (as in wearing blindfolds) of these murky beers and see if under those conditions they would use the same words to describe these beers. I am wondering aloud if the "juicy" (as in orange juice) appearance of these beers is the basis of their perception for "juicy" of these beers?

I have not had any beers from Tree House, Trillium, Bissel Brothers,... but I have had many hazy hoppy beers from Tired Hands (I have posted twice on NBS on canned Tired Hands beers). I enjoy drinking the Tired Hands beers but frankly I think I enjoy them despite their appearance (I am not really a fan of murky appearance). Do Tired Hands beers have less "clarity of flavors"? Boy, I really do not know what to say here. Do Tired Hands beers have 'better' mouthfeel? I wouldn't necessarily say that is the case. Do I think that Tired Hands beers are 'superior' to beers like Firestone Walker Union Jack, Maine Lunch, Fat Heads Head Hunter,... no, not really.

I will confess that I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole murky IPA phenomenon. I will be homebrewing a clone of Trillium Fort Point Pale Ale in a couple of months. Maybe through this homebrewing process my thinking will become more 'congealed' on this topic?

Cheers!

Edit: Upon further reflection one quality that I would suggest distinguishes the Tired Hands hazy hoppy beers is the finish of the beer; they do not finish quite as dry as say Union Jack does.

 

I assumed that the haze in most of these beers was due to a combo of proteins from wheat or oats and high dry hopping rates, along with lack of filtering or centrifuging. If you look at the Trillium site (for example) you'll have a hard time finding any beer that doesn't include white wheat. I make beers like this at home with WLP007, 8oz of hops split between whirlpool and dry hop additions, and a grain bill of 10lb 2-row, 1lb wheat and 1 lb carapils.

 

Thought the same re: Trillium (although still not sold yeast isn't involved too. Had a bottle of Congress St that had that distinctly astringent yeasty note.)

The one I'm intrigued by is Hill Farmstead. Per their site, Edward, Abner, etc. don't have any wheat/oat/etc. in the grist -- just pale (and sometimes caramel) malt. Pretty darn hazy results, of course. Wonder what might be causing that. And hope I someday get up there to try them first hand!

 

These pictures are of a test batch of a new double IPA recipe I'll be brewing at work. I had a 22 oz. bottle sitting for the last 3 days, I disturbed in my fridge. I poured very gently and this is how it looks. Looking at the beer under my microscope and comparing it to a hefeweizen, it has about half as much yeast. This beer used a fairly modest amount of hops (the equivalent of 12 oz. for a 5 gallon batch). It also used 10% flaked grains (flaked oats and flaked wheat). My cream ale also uses flaked maize and flaked barley. After lagering for 2 weeks and before filtering, it typically shows a slight haze. The adjunct lager we contract brew uses 30% flaked maize and gets lagered for a month. It falls nearly crystal clear and then gets filtered.

 

This picture is one I took the day we kegged my last batch of DIPA using 1056. It used about 40% more hops than the above pictures. It was not fined, filtered, or centrifuged. It sat cold for a week before going to the brite tank.

 

Another one for comparison... This was my fined but unfiltered Kolsch. I wish there wasn't condensation on the glass

 

Below is a photograph of a DIPA (my version of Pliny the Elder) that I brewed last fall using US-05. This is from my hydrometer sample after a total of three weeks (one week of primary fermentation and two weeks of dry hoping). I dry hopped my 5 gallon batch with a total of 4 ounces of American aroma hops which are high in essential oils (1 ounce each of Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, and Columbus).

 

If Jamil ever made an IPA in his life that didn't hearken back to the very worst beers from the days of the IBU wars, his opinion would hold even a little weight. He hasn't. Nutswingers or not his thoughts are irrelevant.

 

Other BAs do not seem to agree with you since they commented on his thoughts on these matters.

Cheers!

 

I am going to have to say that the days of the antiquated west coast iPas are coming to an end. Ok, maybe there will always be a place for a palate wrecker, but there is a reason heady overtook Pliny, it's new and more approachable than the west coast high ibu pales. I would think that Jamil would be more flexible in his mindset of what good beer is, but to each their own. I will say that heady was the first iPa I actually enjoyed. It opened the door to the Pliny and mercenaries of the world, but prior I couldn't enjoy those extremely bitter pales.

 

I wonder how many people have had Heretic beers and enjoyed them...

 

1) I have had Heretic's red ale and really enjoyed it.
2) I recently brewed one of these NE style hazy IPA and the beer was very turbid. So turbid you could see light through it and it was the color of straw. It fermented for a full two weeks and attenuated fully. Jamil making the comment that brewers are pushing these beer out of fermentation to quickly is a joke. He cant believe there is something else going on here and looks like an idiot for it.
3) just the amount of hops isnt as important and the whole process of brewing these. you could put 4 pounds of hops in a 5 gallon batch of 6% beer and still get clear-ish beer.

 

But 4 pounds of hops in 5 gallons of beer? Would you get much/any beer out?

 

I was exaggerating the point. I would be interested to see though. Any beer to go along with those hops?

 

You would need a hop press for whole hops to recover lost wort.

 

When Trillium's new brewery opened, their first run of beers was distinctly less hazy than versions of the same beers brewed at their old brewery. Some complained, and the brewery acknowledged the difference and attributed it to a batch of hops that had less fat content than they were accustomed to using. They promised the haze would return, and it did in short order. Food for thought.

I think it's important to distinguish between beers that are carefully designed to have a certain mouthfeel and hop character and are, therefore, incredibly cloudy as a result, and other beers that are just yeasty, unfinished messes. Sadly, many people are going to have a hard time telling the difference. Perhaps we just need more education in order to create more skilled tasters.

 

Honestly the level of hazy in these beers definately can't just be cellular. It looks a lot like when I do protein precipitations. Even bacteria, which are a lot smaller than yeast, don't look like this.

If I had to venture an educated guess it would be a combination of insoluble proteins and hydrophobic products from the hops, what you'd call an essential oil. Being rather lipophillic compounds they would most certainly coalesce into droplets or micelles and contribute to the turbidity.

 

Great point about the word and also about the blind taste test. These are things I think about often