Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

I was just in Capones and they still have bottles of it. Maple wood also just tweeted they are brewing another batch.

 

You make a good point, I'm a huge Citra fan but it didn't really shine in the SS matrix.

 

Lake Zurich binnys just got son of juice today... So I assume others did as well.

Looking forward to trying it

I'm also homebrewing a juice bomb this weekend... Recipe seems pretty straight forward. We'll see...

 

I know everyone likes to compare these to Tree House and Trillium (which are very different), but we should be talking Monkish (LA) and The Veil (VA) as well.

It's very difficult to compare all of these beers. Everyone is going to have their own preference. Juice is Loose is most comparable to a lot of the Trillium offerings I've had (I've had 20ish Trillium brews... not bragging, just for comparison sake). But that's to MY palate. I had Cumulus for the first time over Labor Day and thought it had a very similar mouthfeel to some of those beers as well. Monkish is absolutely killing it right now. I met a bartender from The Veil at Half Acre some weeks back and their stuff is drinking fantastic as well. The guy who started them worked at The Alchemist or Hill Farmstead and Cantillon.

Special Sauce honestly is quite a bit sweeter than most of these brews, but that doesn't make it necessarily better or worse. For the guy who asked earlier, Mike found the yeast up in Maine and tinkered with it a bit and the place he got it from loved what he did with it so now they produce a lot more of it for him.

tl;dr There are lots of differences between all these "NE-style" IPAs and there really isn't any "right" definition"

 

As of 7:30 tonight they were sold out at both Warehouse and Printer's Row of Son of Juice. Guy working at Warehouse said someone came in this morning and tried to buy every Son of Juice they had but limited him to one.

 

I wish you were joking...that's so ridiculous.

 

I wish I was haha.

 

That. Is. Absurd. Honestly, who ever asked can have them, it was a good beer but there are better offerings on the market. The silver lining [of the Chicago NE IPA craze] is that more breweries are going to try this style and [hopefully] we are going to see some top notch offerings from both established and up and coming breweries around here. [edits are in brackets, I got interrupted and hit post before finishing my thoughts]

 

Just finished a Mikerphone Hey Ya and thought it was a solid representation of a NE IPA. My favorite examples of the NE Style have been:

RAM - Juicy
Transient - Juice Is Loose
Mikerphone - Hey Ya
Mikerphone - Special Sauce

I also thought Mikerphone Shimmy Shimmy Ya was a good NE Style IPA even though it is classified as a Wheat IPA.

I am anxiously awaiting the next RAM Juicy release in cans. I only tried Juicy out of a crowler, but thought it was fantastic. The best of the bunch in my opinion with the Juice Is Loose coming in a close second. I prefer Mikerphone Hey Ya over most of the Special Sauce batches, but Special Sauce is no slouch either.

It's nice to have so many good choices.

 

I'd love to be able to do a blind tasting of a handful of these at once. It's just so hard considering the differences in timing of releases, etc. Juice is Loose vs. Special Sauce vs. Juicy vs. whatever else would be a fun time. And to throw in a Julius or Trillium or something else actually from NE would be cool.

 

We did Special Sauce Batch #1, Other Half Green Diamonds, and Trillium Vicinity blind. We didn't have a Tree House DIPA at the time (only had Alter Ego, but the Tree House has such a distinct flavor that it's a no brainer). Special Sauce and Vicinity got confused the most, with most people getting Green Diamonds correct (which makes sense, since that's the least "juicy" of the three, and one of the least "juicy" OH IPAs).

Tired Hands is also making some damn "juicy" stuff. Their Milkshake series is ridiculous. Granted, it has lactose added, but they're the creamiest IPA's I've ever had. My mind was blown. Their regular and semi-regular offerings are fantastic as well.

EDIT: I currently have a shit ton of NE DIPAs, Juice is Loose and SS7. Maybe I should do another blind tasting?

 

Damn. We should set this up.

First drawback I see...they won't be of equal freshness...

 

Had a Tired Hands Strawberry Milkshake a few weeks back...possibly in my top 5 IPA ("New England" or otherwise) list.

 

I'd love to partake. I agree on the freshness aspect, but it'd still be cool to do, and after tasting you would probably be able to take that into account. And to get stuff from NE, we'd need a couple people (or more) coordinating trades that would somewhat sync up with a release or two around here.

 

You shouldn't drink that much beer by yourself. If you ask nicely, I will be a good Samaritan and help you.

 

Tired Hands Milkshakes are no joke. Had a bevy of them back when I was an east coaster and each one was incredible. My best friend had a growler of Passion Fruit Millshake back in February that I still think about the glorious taste to this day.

 

I brought back $2000 worth of NE beer 2 months ago. Unfortunately, I'm down to a case of IPAs.

I do have regular OH and Trillium/Tree House/Veil trading partners. So next time I get a big trade, I'll reach out on here and set something up for sure.

 

I've got a guy that is usually willing to get me pretty much whatever is available at Trillium as well if I give him some notice, so I could probably supply that if it ever goes down.