NE IPAs in Michigan?

Decent enough beer with an IPA and DIPA, but nothing I'd consider a NE style at the moment. It's a cool building that's currently a work in progress. They're doing a collaboration with Transient which I'll be curious to try. My favorite of the four on tap is the Midnight In A Perfect World imperial stout. A pretty good deal at $12 a crowler.

 

Haha, I have and I prefer m43.

Brewery only I believe.

But hey, we have choices! Finally.

 

Its amazing that not a single brewery in GR has appeared to jump on this opportunity. I'm not sure if this style is a fad or something that will be sustained over time, just surprising that with all the breweries in and around Grand Rapids, it isn't happening.

 

They've had 3 releases in the last week and a half, so seems like it will be a regular occurrence. They do also offer dome of their beers to go. Place is very kid friendly and has great food (or so I hear, haven't had it myself). Service can be pretty slow though, so you'll need to be patient.....

I think they've piloted some distribution to select accounts, so I think full scale distro is not far away.

I agree with the general sentiment on the last few pages. Why go to Transient or trade for trillium if you have M43 in the neighborhood? M43 is satisfying my NEIPA cravings and it's hard to beat the convenience and price-point (at least for us locals).

 

Or Kalamazoo really. It's really more about it being a fad or not. So many people enjoy that style of beer.

 

I will say, I preferred Transient offerings (especially JIL, Obligatory, and Flightless) over M-43 quite a bit when M-43 initially came out. Thanks to @KevinJohnson2 I was able to try a can from one of their recent releases and I'll say they've bumped up the quality considerably. I'll be happy when it's widely and easily available year round.

 

So how about Transient? Flightless and JiL available right now! (attempts to divert attention from M-43)

 

Picked up M-43 at a local shop here in SWMI earlier this week. Head to head, I prefer Obligatory from Transient. Obligatory wasn't quite as soft, but the juiciness popped for me a little bit more. Regardless, both are very good, and to be 15 minutes from easy access to both is fantastic.

 

Just had Flightless... Guhhh. Best hops Transient (or anyone in MI) has put out to date. Could have told me it was Trillium and I'd believe you.

 

Did they change the recipe? I thought it was really solid but not as good as JIL or M43 when I had it. Still haven't tried Obligatory, unfortunately.

 

Place was underwhelming. The NE IPA was nothing special. Would rather drink month old zombie dust IMO.

 

Agreed. My favorite hoppy beer from them. This batch a little different from the first but still may favorite transient to date.

 

Obligatory is actually my favorite hoppy beer from Transient although the first batch of Flightless was quite good.

 

As of now they are still selling out of the releases at the brewery day of. But as others mentioned we've had 3 releases in under 2 weeks. If for some reason it looks like you will miss it based on your travel time, but there is a release a little before that, PM me and I can help you out. I am 7 min from ON... You'd still have to detour but can make sure you get cans.

Glad people are getting to retry it. When it first came out it was okay, but not there yet. The tweaks to the recipe have done it well and for anyone that had it earlier I hope they can try the newer batches. Instead of comparing the not finished recipe to others.

I really want to try flightless. But the drive with the shitty weather today. And other weekend plans, it's not happening. One of these days...

 

Obligatory was my favorite too, until tonight...

 

Very gracious of you. I'll let you know as it gets closer.

 

It is surprising. But I wonder if there's some sort of logistical advantage for brewers that are smaller and newer to make the effort to do the shift. I'm completely talking out of my ass here, but based on Old Nation's continued triangulation of the recipe and Ellison's consistency struggles (as well as reports of struggles from various other brewers doing NE IPAs), it sounds like there may be considerable time investment in getting it right, at least at first.

Places like Old Nation and Ellison are relatively new to the market and haven't really established a foothold. Spending the time to get this substyle right is an investment in their future and could ultimately be make or break on their long term success. That same urgency doesn't exist for a place like Founders, just to name one. Even a place like Perrin is a bit more established and clearly has good arrangements with distributors and retailers by proxy. To those places, spending that triangulation time is time away from producing tried and true beers that seem to be selling pretty well.

And it's one of those things where if you're going to enter into the market with a NE IPA at this point, it sure as hell needs to be on point right away, lest you get it wrong and get labeled as "cashing in" on the trend. The market is pretty competitive for new entries. After all, hazy, juicy IPAs are the rage right now, but there are plenty of other things that are still popular as well. Perhaps it's just that jumping into the market with a NE IPA offering isn't an easy thing to do.

 

Missed Transient's releases last week. Anyone know if they will they be releasing any hops this week? Looking to get some for myself and a buddy out east if I can.

 

Good amount of Flightless there yesterday. Great batch too.

 

That will suffice, assuming it is there on Thursday. Thanks Colonel!