NC's Best Drinking IPAs/ DIPAs

Thats a beautiful thing.

 

lol. hazy doesn't mean better, it just means it's hazy.

you can prefer your IPAs to be hazy, just like some people prefer their IPAs to be bitter, or fruity, or floral, or high abv, or low abv, but none of those preferences make a beer good or bad.

 

Exactly why my response lead with IMO. But, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess I am not alone on this one.

 

Hazy does not necessarily equal better, but it just so happens that a lot of the best hoppy beers are of the hazy variety. At least that I've had. Treehouse, HF, Trillium, and to a little different extent stuff like Grimm or Answer/Mekong stuff in VA. Those hazy IPA's are not always the best, but are frequently best in class IMO.

 

Gents, we appear to talking past one another a bit here. When I responded previously my intent was to convey, again, in my opinion, the best IPA's are coming out of New England right now and it just so happens the ones I thoroughly enjoy are yes, hazy and juicy. I have yet to stumble across a similar style produced here in NC which surprises me given how popular that style has arguably become. Anyway... in no way was my prior response intended to be interpreted to mean that any beer (including IPA's) has to be a hazy to be good.

 

It makes it to Bestway. You get some Double Death Spiral, I'll get Shiva I'll meet you in the middle.

 

Shiva shows up around the Triangle every once in a while. Definitely seen it at BR and I think it may have popped up at Sam's, too.

 

I've yet to have WW Pernicious, but Jade is world class. HDnR was world class and hopefully will be again. I just had Highland's new IPA, quite outstanding (4.2,) imo

 

IMO, Jade is no where to where it was back in 2011 and 2012, it's still very good, but not what it used to be. I noticed a change in 2013 into 2014. This has been debated for years by my friends in NC, and they all agree, it's not what it used to be. Kinda like HDR falling off a cliff in the past 2 years, but Jade hasn't had the inconsistency that HDR has had from batch to batch.

Pernicious is awesome, Hubris is next level from a DIPA outta NC as well. Freak and Gluten Freek are awesome too.

 

Having a Hubris now, it's fantastic.

 

<- Pic aside, I think Jade fresh on tap is still fabulous. Something changes it when it goes in bottles.

 

One of my local places had/has it on tap in VA, only place I've seen it in VA on tap, had a couple pours a couple weeks ago, solid beer, not denying that, but it's not what it once was IMO...if I see it, I'll get a glass or 2 for sure.

 

IIRC, Jade had to alter its hop composition due to availability issues a few years ago. I want to say Foothills had to lower the amount of Jade hops used per batch, so the recipe was tweaked a little.

 

Also, any idea if they were doing growler fills?

 

As I recall that, they subbed out cascade in the dry hop for chinook; still using citra and jade. Or vice versa. I can't recall. But it has to do with chinook.

Does any other brewery use large quantities of jade? It has a black peppery spice to it. I have really seen it catch on anywhere else. The citra is still the star of the show for Jade.

 

That is what I have heard too! FH had to tweak recipe because of sourcing Jade hops AND it was very expensive to make Jade the way the were on the smaller system at the Pub. When they only made / sold at the brewpub, Jade was absolutely awesome! Papa Jade was awesome too!

 

Yeah no bottles. I'm honestly not sure how big of a batch it was, but they said no bottles on this go-round.

Yes they were. They were letting you get 1 64 and 1 32 or 2 32's. And I mean they're not cheap, but it really is an outstanding beer. Just destroyed the Hopslam that I drank at home later on.

 

They had issues getting Jade for a period of time, at least that is what was explained to me.

Hubris bottles end of March, second batch in process now. Based on what I heard last nite...