New England IPA - Release Only When "Ready?"

Wow. And I thought you were on your month off of beer. All of this in jest.

Of course not on bananas. They are picked green, shipped green in one of the most efficient global processes you could imagine. Maybe the "intentionally" part of intentionally managed is redundant. Bananas are done this way obviously because of the very limited life --it has to be that way to distribute a product made in a small niches of the world and export it so widely.

It seems a bit silly that one should have to guess when a product like beer is ready to drink. You can't "see it" or tell by smell/appearance in the container. Of course if folks truly think it is really best out of the fermenter and others later that is a different story. I am talking about things that the brewer and the majority of folks think are best later. This seems mainly now a silly thing to argue about because we are talking about things released mainly brewery only when skipping distro, etc. Truly a niche. We have one such place in my town.

Man, this one is giving me a headache.

Certainly releasing beer not felt "ready" has not been the norm for the majority. Or perhaps that is where beer is now and it has passed me by. If so, OK with me. Plenty of folks here and regionally I don't have to worry about so all good.

 

For a style that is not meant to be long for this world. You surely are creating the potential for a donnybrook.

 

So, beer brewers should can their beer, taste it daily, consult with you, and if you give the okay it's ready then they can go ahead and put it for sale? I mean, you actually suggest they contact all beer drinkers to get a majority opinion, but that would take too long. Cheers!

 

This is an early entrant in the "Best Thread of 2018" sweepstakes.

 

I can tell you my boss cares deeply about quality of beer and we have prioritized that with the belief that profits will come as a result and it will take time.

See my above post about why shelf life can be better in cans or bottles. Even micromatic recommends only 45-60 days for unpasteurized draught beer, regardless of style. Many breweries do not follow that guideline and I believe that’s a mistake. I’m contrast, I have no problem giving a recommended 90 day shelf life for cans of our Pils and I don’t think I’d be comfortable doing the same for kegs (I haven’t tested keg shelf life since that’s not a concern for us, so I can’t say with absolute certainty) in large part because at Siebel/Doemens we were taught that draught beer should be consumed fresh and not thought of as a long term storage solution. I like to see all of our kegs dispensed in 6 weeks, for hazy IPA’s, I want to see 4 weeks, although I don’t think a keg has ever lasted longer than 3 weeks since we opened.

 

Absolutely! All the folks who got tired of complaining about beer not being fresh enough came back strong with a new protest movement against beers being too fresh. Guess it keeps em off the streets and out of trouble.

 

I agree.
I know people that won't eat a banana if it has even a few brown speckles on it. To me, a banana is unpalatble UNLESS it is covered with brown speckles (I suppose that the aforementioned people don't like their bananas to be sweet and flavorful).
It just boils down to personal taste. Hell... I miss the days in the late '60s/early '70s when I could but a sixpack of Ballantine IPA confidently knowing that it was aged in bulk for a full year at the brewery before being packaged.

 

We haven't actually gotten to the heated part yet. But. Let's apply some common sense for the mouth breathing masses.
If you want a beer that is meant to be consumed within 4 weeks of packaging. The last thing a brewery wants to do is to limit that window by sitting on it for two weeks until it is ready.

 

There is probably some different impact from different hop varieties, but honestly with our processes, it seems to be more a function of total hop load.

We use a device called a Rolec DH 90 to perform our dry hopping. There are videos on the web about it if you are curious. It upped our hop aromatics and flavor, but it also contributed to increased hop burn when we go over the quantities I mentioned before. To combat, we do some hopping during active fermentation and drop as much of the yeast as possible prior to doing additional dry hopping using the DH 90. We also incorporate an extra day or two (depending on the exact recipe) of cold crashing prior to packaging.

TPO is a huge factor for shelf stability of a hoppy beer, but that wasn't really my point here. I've had plenty of hazy AND non-hazy IPAs that were great fresh and dogshit after a short period. Once a brewer has solid quality practices like limiting DO/TPO, excellent sanitation, and excellent yeast health, then we can start talking about the impact of recipe formulation on shelf life.

Assuming equivalent quality practices, it's my opinion that many (but not all) hazy IPAs hold up better than equivalent bright IPAs. I say that because the neutral yeast character of many bright IPAs leaves very little behind once the hops fade. I think the hazy IPAs that hold up well are the ones made with really expressive yeasts (Conan, LA3 etc). The yeast esters are reminiscent of hop flavors to begin with, and if I had to guess I'd say there is some biotransformation going on as well that's causing some otherwise volatile flavors to stick around. That last bit is anecdotal though.

My overall point is that a well crafted hazy IPA using an expressive yeast will still have fruity hop character for a longer period of time than the same beer made with neutral american ale yeast. Those just taste like malt to me once the hops fade - the yeast/biotransformations give the hazy IPA something to hide behind. The wildcard here are bright IPAs brewed with expressive English yeasts. I think those end up somewhere in the middle.

 

So just to update the complaints. IPA are either too fresh or not fresh enough, too bitter or not bitter enough, too cloudy, too clear, too fruity, too piney, too strong a taste for beginners, have too many substyles, don't have enough substyles, are for people who don't like the taste of beer, and are leading to the loss of tradition in beer brewing,

I think we can all agree on one thing, and that is there are altogether too many complaints about a style that, despite all these complaints, is taking over the world.

 

Well. A simplistic response to that is... Deal with it.
ALL beer is like that when it gets packaged. The easiest way to learn this truth is by homebrewing.

 

Outside of that. You do control when the package is opened. No one is forcing your hand on this issue.
Buyer beware, etc.

 

For example? Also, how did you do the comparison between the younger and the older samples of the same beer.

 

With the Black Ale, did you do a direct side by side blind comparison of a new bottle and an older bottle? If not how can you be sure of the amount of change?

 

But his point is that they do change with time in the bottle, not how rapidly the change takes place. NEIPAs are notorious for the speed with which they fall off, but all beers change with time, even stouts, etc. Perhaps they don't change rapidly but they do change.