Was Tap 5 the original NEIPA?

All I know is you type a great deal better than I am capable of doing while intoxicated

 

i've never had this beer but it was added to this site in july of 2007 while heady topper was added to the database in march of 2004. evidence points in the direction of no, this was not the first new england ipa...

 

I think you're OK. The vast majority of Murkbombs do taste and smell the same. Just drink what ya enjoy.

 

There are a lot of similarities in the murky appearance, creaminess, lack of bitterness and mouthfeel. However the primary difference is NEIPAs lean toward tropical fruit aroma and tastes where Tap 5 (which surprisingly I have rated this beer yet), will lean towards some clove and banana aroma and flavors.

 

@dajjorg - In my opinion, if you handed a person on BeerAdvocate a glass of Hopfenweisse and told them it was a NEIPA, they might be fooled. I also think that Hopfenweisse would have been received differently if it was first released 3 years ago. To me, such beers have a lot in common. I think your thread deserves more reception than it seems to be getting.

Heady might have predated Hopfenweisse, but Hopfenweisse predates the NEIPA as a category with any weight. Did the German beer influence the category? It’s possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it without a brewer saying so.

I did two blind tastings with Hopfenweisse against multiple NEIPAs in the past. Such tastings weren’t ideal (of course), because I’m not an ideal drinker, and the variety of NEIPAs is larger than people claim. In the first tasting, I couldn’t tell which beer was which. In a later second tasting, I could recognize the German beer because I had the experience of the first blind tasting behind me, and because those NEIPAs had different character.

 

I'm far from an authority on either style since neither has ever been a favorite of mine. But I will say you are on to something.

There is definitely a subset if NEIPA that uses wheat as an adjunct and derives a lot of its flavor from yeast expression. Not all NEIPA are like that, as @zid pointed out the "style" is very broad these days, but some definitely are.

I've never heard a prominent neipa brewer discuss being inspired by the German wheat beer tradition, but I haven't made an effort to listen to much of the lore around the style so maybe it's been noted.

Either way, excellent drunken epiphany. If it were up to me I'd promote you a rank or two for that one

 

@dajjorg - Before you put too much weight on the date of Heady Topper, ask yourself if Hopfenweisse is more like a NEIPA than Heady is.

 

There is definitely that style of neipa in the states, but it is not the only version. For instance, Heady topper doesn't use any adjuncts. I don't know if the heavily wheated version is the dominant approach or not, I just know that it's not the only approach brewers over here are using.

Either way, I think your vikings/Columbus analogy is probably a good one. There's this sweet, citrussy, phenolic flavor of beer that people really like. NEIPA brewers get all the glory for creating it, but some German weisse brewers may have gotten to it first.

 

Definitely, German wheat beers are the OG "Hazy" beers.

 

i went out in search of some schneider at places i know that sold it in the past. i could only find the aventinus doppel and eisbocks. i'm really curious to try tap 5 now. i ended up taking home some hacker pschorr weissbier, so thank you for getting me out of my comfort zone with this thread! there's a bar near me that usually has several schneider taps but they don't post their tap list online, may have to do some "research".

as far as adjuncts go, i tend to really like NEIPAs that use wheat and/or oats in the malt bill. i find that the lactose isn't too prevalent with the hoppy beers here in new england. i see lactose more often in the pastry sours these days

 

oh, also bought some estrella galicia especial, which i wouldn't have grabbed if spain wasn't on my mind. so thank you for that too, it's a fine helles!

 

You post motivated me to look this beer up:

“Estrella Galicia Cerveza Especial is a premium beer, produced using pilsen and roasted malts, and hops of the Nugget and Perle Hallertau varieties. Offering a traditional flavor of marked bitterness and refreshing aftertaste with every sip, this is a light and refreshing beer, easy to drink.”

https://estrellagalicia.com/us/

I found it interesting that they use American hops (Nugget) and German hops (Perle Hallertau). My guess would be that Nugget is used for the bittering addition.

Cheers!

 

they only have tap 6, the doppelbock

 

Heady a NEIPA

Yes. Don't think I'd call Heady a NEIPA the way the style is done now. Too clear and too bitter, really closer to a West Coast IPA, though it's not one of those either.

 

I have several (many?) times posted that Heady Topper is somewhere between a 'regular' (or West Coast if you prefer) IPA and a Juicy/Hazy (aka New England) IPA.

Cheers!

 

Hopfenweisse was definitely genre-bending when it came out, but rather than an NEIPA (or Hazy IPA or whatever), I feel like it hit a lot of the same notes as a Belgian IPA. Remember those? They were all the rage for a few months. Kinda like Brut IPA was in 2019. That's the era when Hopfenweisse was birthed. I know that it's obviously not Belgian and is something else entirely, but hops + esters and phenols is the root of that beer.