Best NEIPA maker from OG breweries

Sierra Nevada has knocked it out of the park with Hazy Little Thing and Fantastic Haze.

 

Off the top of my head I would say Sierra Nevada. Not many breweries from the '90s I recall who are making haze nowadays. The Sierra Nevada hazies are OK but obviously not something to compare to Monkish or Root + Branch. Decent affordable shelfies though.

Got there 1 minute before me!

 

Harpoon’s Rec League is my go to session NEIPA. Great summer beer! Best hazy session I’ve had.

 

I haven’t had many - I thought the Sam Adams version was ok when it came out a couple of years ago - like a lite version w/zero edginess. Tried the hazy version of New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger series a few months ago and thought It was horrible. So many challenges to mass marketing NEIPAs - new process/ingredients - hop volumes - shelf life - affordability etc etc. I can see why there hasn’t been a ton of successful examples. Will give the SN and Harpoon version a try....but my Monkish/TH/Hill Farmstead/Cellermaker trained palate is not likely to be satisfied.

 

That Sam Adams NEIPA is actually a pretty good bargain. It is a solid NEIPA available for $10 for 6x12oz you don't see good stuff at that price point very often. Not a fan of Voodoo ranger either. As far as NEIPA's go I'd choose Sam Adams over Sierra Nevada (I think SN makes far better dark beers) but both are definitely ultra respected OG breweries and I can personally vouch for how awesome the folks at SN are.

 

I would say Cantillon. Why? Because the pre-2000 breweries attempts at NE IPAs are about as far from a real NEIPA as Cantillon's lambics are from an NEIPA and I would choose the lambics over those other attempts.

 

@bubseymour, I’m wondering if you’ll need to translate “Y2K” for some of our younger members—they might have no idea what that term refers to

 

I feel the same way about a huge number of American sours and wild ales, so when the urge strikes- which is rarely- I opt for the European forebears.

 

Yeah, but that really has more to do with scale and logistics than anything else.

 

That's the year all of the computers went haywire, a pandemic swept the globe and politics became a lousy reality show. No, wait....

 

Wat?

 

Mountain Standard from Odell is incredible and imo it would drive its own hype train if it were produced by one of coveted, beanie baby breweries.

 

Meh, so the apocalypse is 20 years behind schedule ...

 

Had Central Waters Extremely Unsettled recently (I think CW qualifies for OP's criteria) and thought it was nicely done. Mandarina Bavaria hops are not among my favorite but this is just personal preference. Thought it was a nice beer otherwise and would get again if they switched up the hops used next time.

 

I really want to try Fantastic Haze... butt the Norfolk TW still has 6ers from December of last year... sigh.

 

From your other post I was responding to why they aren't making 'great' versions, maybe not Tree House clones but certainly up there; and I definitely think that scale and logistics does have a lot to do with it. Decent and tasty do already exist, it would seem. What can they do to close the gap would be a better question, perhaps?

Let's keep in mind that freshness and shelf life are both very key to the style, and functioning at odds with large scale distribution of product. If a national brewer can get something to the consumer's hands in 3 to 4 weeks they're actually doing a pretty good job.

Then there's the whole shelf life/centrifuging angle; obviously beers in wider distribution need to lean a lot harder in that direction. Smaller brewers who self-distribute can also insure that the beer is in constant refrigeration on the retailers end, and so package their beers accordingly.

Consistency- again, brewers like SN and SA are much more tied to that, almost beholden to it even. They will blend out the greater variations as a result. Whereas smaller scale brewers will tend to actually have batch variation due to the nature of the hops that they are using at the time.

All in all there does seem to be a ceiling that the bigger guys won't be able to get past due to their business model. But context also matters- if you're in the local sports pub watching a game then maybe a pint of Hazy Little Thing would be just what the doctor ordered. And it'll at least be available there.

 

Great Lakes Brewery in Ontario has been around since 1987 and has just released an excellent NEIPA called Hazemama. If this brewery decides they’re doing an IPA, they pull it off. In fact, I’m cracking a Hazemama and the conclusion of this post.