Why all hazies taste the same

All fucking beer tastes the same.

There i said it.

 

Yeah I really don't see how the flavor profile spread of hazies is any less than any other style. Sure it might not match something as open ended as saison but, as noted above, it's certainly wider than many traditional styles.

Breaking News! Beer styles taste similar to each other!

 

At first I thought this was some clever trolling. I’ve been burned or bored by one too many mediocre NEIPA enough times, so I took the bait. But the article is from Beer & Brewing, folks who know what they’re talking about! And the whole point really is about how to brew a unique, standout beer. A hazy IPA can and should taste great. I can’t argue with that!

Here’s a passage that stood out to me. Aside from the advice on brewing a distinctive hazy ipa, I realized the “typical stone fruit notes” of WCIPAs reflected the contemporary landscape and not my still-lingering mental image of the more classic pine and grapefruit hop forward WCIPA.

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How to Make a More Distinctive Hazy IPA
To execute a perfect hazy, brewers are looking for the following three characteristics:

• The most obvious is the haze, which comes from protein interactions with hops and flavonoids, and it is accentuated by yeast. This combination is responsible for the opaqueness of the beer.
• A fruity, hoppy aroma. The aroma is more tropical than the stone fruit–notes often found in West Coast IPAs. The tropical hops help contribute to the relatively low perceived bitterness of the brews.
• A fluffy texture and mouthfeel. Most are looking for a smoothie-esque texture in hazies.

 

I've found that there is a lot of variation among hazy IPAs and it's a lot more broad than just hops. Many IPAs with similar hops are completely different while others with different hops are surprisingly similar. As noted in the article there are many factors and mouthfeel and sweetness are just a few of them. I do "Battle Beers" because I find it interesting to detect the differences between the NEIPAs, brewing hops & ingredients, and breweries.

 

Lol…Wut? I find the variance in flavor profiles tend to be what makes a hazy good and what makes one not so good. With the exception of breweries like OH and trillium brewing basically the same beer with a different label (More OH than Trilly.), I can somewhat agree with your original statement about hazies-but you done lost your mind on that lager quote. And living in Germany too?! Tsk, tsk.

 

I read the whole article and found more info about haze and mouthfeel than about “taste”. I reject the notion that most hazy IPAs taste the same. If they did then my reviews would all be about the same. I think the article title was little more than click bait.

 

Look, hazies definitely don’t all taste the same. Now, I agree the ridiculous number of different hazies released from the IPA factory breweries does make it seem like many are the same, only because many are extremely similar. BUT, sometimes the single hops and/or hop combinations do taste very different. Nelson hopped beers taste VERY different from Citra. You get the point. It’s disingenuous to say all hazies taste the same. That being said, what I enjoy is the difference between them and other beer styles.

 

It's not just the hops. There seem to be several distinct approaches to "hazy" ipas that range from being only slightly sweeter and fuller bodied than a modern west coast ipa all the way to the super thick and sweet style.

The type and amount of adjuncts seems to be the biggest lever brewers use to move along that spectrum, and then hop choices allow for less extreme variance within the place on that spectrum that a beer falls. Yeast (which seems to be the main focus of the article) is also an obvious factor that leads to many individual breweries having a distinctive house flavor across their hazy ipas.

 

If all you're drinking is NEIPA that's a blend of Citra and another hop or two, you're probably going to have a lot of beers that taste similar.

As well, if you're drinking beers from a place that doesn't make good ones, they'll generally taste the same.

But well-made NEIPA always has distinct nose/taste differences.

 

Sure absolutely. My brother in law is the senior brewer at Tin Barn in NY so conversations with him have been very enlightening because they make a lot of hazies there. He’s had a lot to say about different hop combinations as well as yeast and malts, etc.

 

Chemistry aside they missed the main point of why they all taste the same, because a majority of breweries put Simcoe, citra, mosaic, and/or El dorado into any of their first hazy to tap/market. Which all in all not a terrible thing, since expectations can be referenced in regards to the base style can be assessed. Some have a grainy mouthfeel, astringent resin or burning hop note if the process isn't perfect it's hard to get the pillow feel. That's what separates the neipa brew masters from the experimental hype people I love those hops. The new aussie and nz varieties with the red berry and earthy pine flavors are hit or miss for me.

 

Yeah I know there's a lot of sentiment that brewers just brew them because they're popular, but from a technical/process standpoint it seems like it's probably a pretty fun style to play with whether you love the finished product or not.

 

I can only speak for him, and he’s always loved IPAs, but he also loves lagers, saisons, etc. He can attest it’s now a bit hard to work in those other styles when the NE IPAs sell so well.

 

Thats all fine, I'm not trying to start any kind of debate. Though on the other hand...I can't take seriously that all lagers taste the same either (I don't think that is what you are trying to say by the way)..that is nonsense if people think that, and if that is the case...well I have nothing else to say, so there You switched from lagers to Pilsners at the end, and I have been pretty nonspecific with "lager" as well, so again, there you go As lager can be a LOT of different styles.

I personally find NEIPA very similar. In that, there is an almost nonexistent finish, which I guess that is what some people call "soft carbonation" plus a lack of any bitterness. Its annoying for me, and since after trial and error, I have identified what I don't like, I now avoid that. I guess that is some of what makes it all "the same" to me. I find the spicy, grassy, herbal Noble hop flavor in some pilsners very distinct, let alone the level of malts that can be detected. None of that I find in NEIPA. Really, anybody can describe the levels of "fruit juiciness" which all seem to run together IMO. I'm really not trying to make this a contest, just that some people, like me, don't really compartmentalize all the fruits for NEIPA plus the feel I mentioned above, it becomes all muddled, and well...the same. For someone of the persuasion that NEIPA's do all seem "the same" that is the best I can do to describe what I feel is the reason, in a respectful way.

 

Just food for thought, I don't hold my response above as something set in stone, just my particular thoughts at this time. I will also add this...people that don't like a particular style or genre in anything...be it movies, music, books...BEER. They will say, that thing they don't like always seems the same...

All super hero movies end the same
All jazz is the same (people say this to me all the time, and I can't say how wrong they are)
All black metal is the same
All westerns are the same
All Pilsners or NEIPA are the same

I don't have a point, ha, just throwing that out there

 

But you made a broad statement and said “Lagers”. And yes I would say that pilsners have at least as broad a flavor profile/spectrum as NEIPAs. Are we talking Northern German pils, southern German pils, czech pils, American pils, Canadian pils, Italian pils, polish pils, etc.?