What beer started the turbid/cloudy IPA trend?

Heady Topper was number one on Beeradvocate for years. The trademark was the fruit forward hop profile (IPAs were leaning that way anyways with Pliny, Sculpin...etc.) and hazy appearance. Also of note was the Conan yeast (English yeast) and insane hopping rate, especially the dry hopping. This all contributed to that flavor profile people sought out.

Tree House and Trillium just took it to yet another level, but the popularity and even the trend of chasing a rare hard-to-obtain beer, all started with Heady Topper.

Heady was more than just an influencer, it was THE insanely hazy hoppy and popular beer before any other. And it stood atop that mountain for a long time.

 

I can appreciate what you posted, but Heady started it in 2003. This article provides some context.

https://vinepair.com/articles/heady-topper-beer-history/

PS: I absolutely LOVE Julius, but Heady is Ground Zero, IMHO.

 

I agree with everything you said @AlcahueteJ but I like to think that alchemist gave people the idea. But I still look at it as tree house and trillium being the ones who prompted the mass copying taking place across America. Sure, no alchemist, probably no trillium or treehouse but I read the thread as cloudy ipa being the goal. That was never alchemists goal, it was the by product of the beer he wanted.

I feel like TH and trillium are to blame, take responsibility for a beer must be super cloudy and hazy.

edit: heady still stands atop my mountain @AlcahueteJ

 

For me it definitely was beers by tired hands.

 

I get where you're coming from because some of Treehouse's newer beers fit into the ultra murky, mega-juice category (I haven't had many of their newer beers, but I had "Juice Machine" which is very popular but was off puttingly cloying and thick to my palate). But I don't think any of their original lineup of beers would really be confused with a beer like that.

I think if one sits down with Julius, Haze, Green, or especially Sap (am I missing any of the OG's?) they wouldn't seem like that radical of an extension of what the Alchemist was doing. They're attractively hazy rather than murky, with an amped up nose and a moderate bitterness.

 

Finest Kind was a damn good beer. I mean I assume it still is, I just haven’t had one in years.

 

This is probably the right answer. Heady was more of a “traditional” DIPA and Finest Kind more of a traditional IPA that happened to have floaters and poor clarity. But they were the first mass popular ones to look like that. The others are more likely the drivers of this juicy bullshit that has now somehow further developed into milkshake, and will probably soon be literal smoothies infused with grain alcohol or whatever the next step in the “evolution” is.

 

I remember referring to finest kind as hop juice when I first had it. If only we knew how literal hop juice would become years later...It seems comical now to refer to that beer as hop juice but hey it’s all relative I guess.

 

For me the two beers that took the traditional ipa hop profile and changed it to more fruit and tropical forward was heady topper and Alpine Nelson. Both were hazy while heady was more. To me Treehouse and tired hands were the first to create the hazy style many people seek out: juicy, creamy with minimal bitterness.

the question is what do consider the “hazy turbid trend”. Heady was the first to brew an ipa that looked like a hefe. But tired hands and Treehouse were the trend setters for the turbid juice bombs that are so popular.

 

Well, since no one answered my question, I voted "Other" since Toppling Goliath pre-dates The Alchemist by 2 years. IDK what beers they were brewing in those two years, but they are known for hazy turbidity.

Of course, not being in New England,...

 

Alpine Nelson was hazy and juicy before anything else on that list.
Heady topper was added before Alpine though in the BeerAdvocate database. So whatever.

 

This is a very interesting question. I have to go with Heady because when they started canning Heady pretty much everyone was making clear IPAs with a few random unfiltered IPAs out there. Heady started the trend and people started chasing it and exploring these turbid IPAs. By today’s standards it might not be as hazy but when it came out it was definitely hazy.

I feel in Tree House and Trillium started pushing IPAs away from being bitter to more juicy helping create the NEIPA style and hype for these turbid IPAs.

I do feel Tired Hands is lower for on the list for the credit of making this trend happen, but I feel their response of making milkshake IPAs after getting slammed by Jason in that review helped push making NEIPAs its own unique style instead of being a subset of IPAs in general.

 

I voted for Heady Topper so I could see the results, haven't been on the scene long enough to really vote. looks like a landslide. Cheers.

 

Well before all of that stuff listed was the hazy sediment style of the smuttynose IPA well before those breweries existed

 

The terms turbid and cloudy are associated with the NEIPA stye and Heady is the founding father of that style. Other brewers have taken it to a new extreme since then, but Heady started it all.

 

Alchemist was founded in 2003 and Heady was first brewed that year. Well before Toppling Goliath. 2011 was just when Heady was first canned.

Alpine was “established” in 1999, but what were they brewing before 2003?

McIlhenney’s Irish Red was their first beer. Then Pure Hoppiness which the website itself describes it as a West Coast IPA.

They didn’t have an actual brewery until 2002, and only those two beers were on the market at that point. The first beer brewed at Alpine’s brewery was an American Wheat Ale (Willy). This was followed by Mandarin Nectar (an herbed/spice beer), Alpine Ale (never had it, but doesn’t sound like a turbid hazy pale ale), and then a stout.

Then in 2003/2004 they brewed Exponential Hoppiness and started messing around with New Zealand hops.

I’m well aware what was produced by Green Flash was nothing like what was at the original brewery, but I imagine the more hazy IPAs were brewed 2003 and beyond.

Finest Kind was first brewed in 2004, Heady was 2003.

Also Finest Kind was hazy because it was unfiltered. They went out of their way to state this on the bottle. It has an old school hop profile and doesn’t have newer hops like Heady does. Not to mention the ridiculous dry hopping schedule Heady used that Finest Kind didn’t.

Someone please feel free to correct me on this, as I’ve never tried brewing clones of either of these, just going off clone recipes.

 

I’m not sure who was 1st but Heady was the beer that made it famous!

 

I agree, and I want to change my vote to Heady. It was the beer that set the DIPA market on its ear, and after all these years look where’s its still rated. I was thinking NEIPAs at first so Trillium and Tree House popped into my head. But Heady was the first hazy beer with floaties I ever had, and it’s as good today as ever.

 

But wasn't distributed anywhere so its effects weren't well known for several years...that hazy style was out there....unfiltered ipas were def around. As far as good goes Heady Topper is the king of the Hazy IPA but there were many around even shipyard IPA and even Number 9. Just saying when u say hazy there were a lot. And the trend of murky micro was around in the 90S ipswich ipa...