WTF is an NEIPA?

Seems to be necessary to include a decent percentage of oats and/or wheat to encourage a mouth feel. Haze, and it includes nearly entirely late hop additions that are more juice fruity than resin pine. It might be part of the zero IBU trend that some brewers are making a point about.
The yeast notes seem to also be more British than American. But, not always. There's also some treatment of the water.

 

I've never had an NEIPA with clumps. NEIPAs are, almost by definition, hazy and loaded with citrus flavors from hops with low apparent bitterness relative to WCIPAs.

 

I'm in Texas, the only reason I've had Tree House and Trillium beer is because I know a craft beer bar owner who has serious connections, a large enough house that he can convert a room to house beer trading whales, and a very generous spirit.

You're right, not all NEIPAs are juice bombs. One that comes to mind, that I didn't particularly care for, was the very aptly named Haze.

 

OP, you must have been MIA on BA for some time as seemingly every third thread has been about "who produces NE IPAs in region X or city Y?", "will work for hazy juice bombs", etc. IMO NE IPAs are nothing more than a brewery's attempt at making their version of a Tree House IPA. I give all the credit in the world to Tree House. They are responsible for this trend. Anecdotally, labeling an IPA as a NE IPA certainly seems to spike sales as consumers are clamoring for their own local Tree House ("Have you had beer abc from brewery xyz down the street? Juice bomb. Might not be as good as Julius but it's right there with Haze so no need to trade for Tree House anymore."). Keywords seem to include among others "hazy, juice bomb", "pillowy mouthfeel", "straight up juice", "hazy AF". I'd agree in that there seems to be a good amount of variation in beers which are labeled or described as NE IPA but as long as the beer is turbid it seems to pass muster with most people.

 

It's generally characterized by a turpid, orange appearance. Prevalent sweet citrus / tropical fruit. Low levels of bitterness. Soft mouthfeel.

 

I think we have different definitions of bitterness. When I say bitter, I mean really bitter tongue scrapers like Sculpin.

 

In my mind it's a hazy juicy IPA that is not bitter at all. Not a style I like. Tough to drink a full pint for me. I will be very close to treehouse in a few weeks and was not going to go but this thread has me thinking maybe I should try these beers as it looks like they do make some bitter IPA.

Enjoy

 

Respectfully disagree....I'll stick with my original definition.

I'm a fairly proficient homebrewer, but I'm sure someone better than me (or a professional) will chime in about how bursting / dry hopping contributes to the characteristic flavoring without bitterness for this style. Of course, this is just one of the differentiating components, but a key one related to your comment

 

Personally I've been calling them East Coast IPAs for years as I would include Victory DirtWolf and a few NY brews in this style, but it seems the consensus is New England IPA.

My basic understanding of the style is something different to the classic West Coast IPA which are: bitter/piney hops, mostly filtered, no adjuncts like oats/wheat, hop oils in the mouthfeel, medium to high bitterness in the finish, whereas a NEIPA has: More tropical/juice driven hops, non-filtered, cloudy AF, adjuncts like wheat/oats, heavier body, low to medium bitterness.

This is why I think East Coast works better than New England as a descriptor as it's more of a Yin/Yang thing (West Coast/East Coast).

In any case I definitely prefer East Coast/NEIPAs as the flavours suit me better and I still can't handle too much bitterness. That said I've had some brilliant WCIPAs over the years, and my opinion is entirely subjective. Cheers!

 

Huh, I thought Heady Topper was the one that started the trend... but then I've not tried Tree House or Heady, so really I have no idea what either tastes like, just noticed the Heady hype train 4-5 years ago from afar and dreamt about trying that sweet sweet nectar.

 

Yeah I'm quite over how many West Coast IPAs there are now, to the point that whenever I review another of that style I always lament the fact that no one has the balls to do anything unique these days.

I guess the novelty of NEIPAs is yet to wear off for me (Aussie brewers have only just begun to dabble in this style).

 

The funny part about this whole thing is that the original "hazy" New England IPA creators that are responsible for this trend, Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, Treehouse, simply make incredibly well balanced hoppy beer that just happens to be hazy. Most newcomers are doing the whole zero-bitterness-make-it-taste-like-pinneapple-juice-with-the-help-of-very-low-flocculant-high-ester-producing-yeast thing, which isn't really what the original guys' beer taste like.

The original North East hazy 16oz can OG... Heady Topper... it's bitter AF. But it's delicious.

 

I agree that many breweries, especially around me, who deliberately put "New England style" or "hazy IPA" on their packaging actually butcher the beer and it ends up tasting quite messy.

Evil Twin tweeted something recently that really made me smile. Not verbatim, but something along the lines of "you don't need to say your IPA is hazy all the time. We already get it. Just call it an IPA"

 

Some good info for NEIPA newbies in the attached recent BYO article on the style. Cheers BA