New England IPA

the location, imo, has nothing to do with the style of ipa.
to me there's 2 styles of ipa. english and american.
I dont even use single or dipa or IIPA or any of it.
I say here's a 7% american ipa with mosaic and centennial from joe's brewing(lol) or here's a 5.1% ipa from england using noble and hallertau.

 

I live 25 minutes from Cellarmaker, go there often, and they have fantastic beers. That being said, their IPAs are quite different compared to the Tree Houses and HF of the world. Also Knee Deep is great, but again the finished product is different than the IPAs the OP is referring to IMO.

 

I have never had a beer from Cellarmaker so I read a few reviews. I extracted one review for Double Dobis which is copied below:

“Pour from growler filled two days ago.
L - hazy orange w/ an off white head that dissipates quickly
S - massive tropical nose - no mistaking its all citra hops
T - Juicy orange & citrus flavor - right as the hops start to go bitter the malt backbone cuts the bitter and balances the flavor.
F - creamy and just on the under side of "thick" w/o a heavy feel.
O - While I enjoy nearly every beer they produce, Double Dobis is a clear favorite and I would put this beer up against any in the style”

In your opinion, what is the distinction between a beer like Double Dobis from a DIPA brewed by Hill Farmstead or Tree House?

Cheers!

 

So how is Double Dobis out of Cellarmaker that has those same characters, very turbid and hoppy, not a New England IPA by this definition? Which is why using a locality for this designation is basically pointless, this is nothing new.. Can't speak for Trillium haven't had any of their beers.

Cellarmaker out of San Francisco is about as far away as New England as it gets heh heh...

I was actually just going to post this question...

 

Yea so for me there is a main difference that i am speculating the OP was suggesting in why they felt this "NE IPA deserves its own classification"

I had this beer on tap at ale arsenal a while back. Hadn't rated or reviewed it at the time but for me the main difference is while, yes, it did have some citrus and tropical notes, it had more of that bitter grapefruit presence overall as opposed to a TH or HF IPA which to me is almost like drinking a glass of orange juice. It is usually more fruity the whole way through and has a juicier flavor. In the selected review they speak about those juicy flavors which it has, but on a much lesser level than the others such as TH Julius or HF Susan etc. Now that is my personal opinion, and also i am curious if the reviewer has had any of these IPAs from TH,HF, Trillium, etc. to compare the flavors between the two. It is hard to compare one to another when we only know what we have had.

Cheers!

 

One could also argue those styles were just new names put on beers that had always been around within the existing styles... much like the "New England" IPA...

FWIW, @bulletrain76 works at Firestone Walker and might know what he's talking about, just saying...

There's a mythos about water sources that is perpetuated around here, but the truth is water treatment is very old science used by almost any production scale food/beverage operation, including brewers. If we're talking about brewing in the 1800's then water sources had a significant effect on beer, but today no so much. Home brewers are probably the most effected by their water's "terroir."

 

I want more hoppy lagers like SN puts out.

 

“I had this beer on tap at ale arsenal a while back. Hadn't rated or reviewed it at the time but for me the main difference is while, yes, it did have some citrus and tropical notes, it had more of that bitter grapefruit presence overall as opposed to a TH or HF IPA which to me is almost like drinking a glass of orange juice.”

I have a difficult time rationalizing that a specific hop flavor/aroma profile ‘defines’ a substyle of beer. The specific flavors that a beer drinker will perceive in a hop forward beer will be dependent on the particular hops used and the individual’s palate’s perception of those hops.

Hill Farmstead brews with a large variation of hop varieties and each of the hoppy beer brands will consequently taste different. Some examples of the DIPAs from Hill Farmstead featuring different hop varieties:

· Double Citra

· Double Galaxy

· Abner (Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, Warrior)

· Ephraim (Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, Warrior)

· Etc.

Should each of the above example DIPAs from Hill Farmstead be ‘classified’ with differing adjectives because they utilize different hop varieties?

Cheers!

P.S. FWIW, the above copied review for Double Dobis sounds like something I might write to describe Hill Farmstead Double Citra.

 

I may start a new thread, why are so many BAs so unecessarily condescending to each other? It's beer.

Go ahead, light me up.

 

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I made no claims that there was a substyle of beer. I was given a particular beer to compare to and gave my opinion as to why i find them to have a different flavor compared to what the OP mentioned. I have had all the HF beers you listed and its very obvious they taste different. That being said, the person who said that Cellarmaker beers will make you think the East coast NE offerings will make you think they are not unique is far from accurate IMO. With EVERY beer that Cellarmaker brews being considered, the TH and HF breweries for example are extremely unique if we are compaing them to Cellarmaker. That is the point I made in my response. The hops being used are not in question, as much as the overall finished product that comes from the entire process. Don't want you to think i am trying to suggest that beers with different hops should be classified differently. But don't tell me that drinking Cellarmaker's IPAs proves that Tree House's IPAs are not unique cause that is simply not true.

 

Maybe I complicated the discussion by utilizing an example beer (Double Dobis)?

Perhaps I can 're-open' the discussion by simply asking a broader question: In you opinion what distinguishes the hoppy beers of Cellarmaker from the hoppy beers of Hill Farmstead?

Cheers!

 

Be a dick all you want. I've had Pliny. I've had many of the Alpine hoppy beers. I've had all sorts of great IPAs/IIPAs from the Northeast (was great having my little brother living in Vermont for a while). And I've had great IPAs/IIPAs from everywhere in between (I'm a beer nerd, a major-hop head, a former whale-chaser, and a guy who used to trade for anything hot/I wanted to try). The point is that you can have a piney IIPA from the east coast as easy as you can from the west coast. Same goes for tropical flavors, and citrusy scents, and X.XX LBs of hops per barrel. Yes, there are some great hoppy beers coming out of the northeast, but NOTHING about them sets them apart so much that you have to make a new style of IPA or IIPA for them. That's the point I'm making.

 

I think that a much tighter beer market has made this type of camaraderie obsolete. Maybe ten years ago I'm sharing my world class recipe and technique because I'm one of the few games in town, and I'm the best. But now, there are way too many superb brewers looking for an edge to stay relevant.

 

And my point is that these IPAs are not simply classified by the descriptors you are using. They have a soft mouthfeel, they aren't bittered to 1.0 or higher bu/gu ratios, and the interactions between the yeast and hop oils do change hop perception in these beers. There are studies into hop oils that are fascinating right now. two hops can be added to a beer, and while a specific oil may not be present in either hop variety alone the combination of the two along with yeast can create a new oil that isn't found in either hop. This isn't just a question of the sum of the parts anymore. There are bio-chemical reactions going on that we are still questioning, and I feel these beers are venturing into a territory that is going to be fascinating to investigate. All this being said, as a homebrewer who competes I stick with my agreement that these beers should have their own category for stylistic comparisons.

 

Good for him. What percentage of beer is water?

 

I've always agreed with this argument, and the geographic descriptors of IPAs have always driven me nuts. But, starting around about the time Heady was getting poured on tap, many of the best NE IPAs have begun more and more to resemble swamp water, with excessive cloudiness and floaties. I like this personally. If we want to brand "New England IPAs" as the cloudy ones, vs the cleaner Plinys of the world, then I suppose that would be helpful. But as far as flavors are concerned, it's not really relevant.

 

Randy, brewers in the 1800’s would treat their water.

For example, London brewers who produced pale beer (Pale Ales, Bitters) would source their water from the upper Thames and upper Lee rivers and decarbonate the source water (pre-boil the water) to optimize the production of these pale beer styles.

Marin Brungard wrote a series of articles that were published in Zymurgy magazine on the water of historical brewing cities and he discussed how the local brewers would take steps to produce beer using those local waters.

Cheers!

 

Cellarmaker uses all of those hops and more.. which is exactly why there shouldn't be different classifications.

 

It seems to me that @Hop_God is of the opinion that the hoppy beers of Cellarmaker are 'different' from the hoppy beers of Hill Farmstead. I am awaiting his response on this topic.

Do you have an opinion on this specific issue; Cellarmaker vs. Hill Farmstead?

Cheers!

 

Ok I haven't gone through the entire thread to figure out what the cellarmaker vs HF controversy is but here is my take on the new england ipa. There is a recent trend of unfiltered, extremely cloudy IPA that uses very little crystal malt that has become associated with breweries in the north east/new england (trillium, treehouse, HF, TH...etc) I don't believe it is all that different that it needs to be its own category or anything but it is certainly a taste that is substantially different from other IPAs I have had from around the country. I also notice hop extract use is also a common theme and seems to produce a much softer bittering to my palette than other bitter methods.

I agree with comments like "juicy" and "fruit juice" as descriptors of these beers and I think many of them highlight the hops in them quite well with a minimal but present malt backbone basically enough to "hold it together". These beers typically have significant water chemistry done to them to help accentuate the hops, some starting with RO/Distilled and building the water to exactly where they want it.