Wachusett entering the hazy IPA arena

Glad to hear that - I'll be interested to check them out. Did they still have some bitterness to them or were they aiming for the pure juicebomb sort of thing?

I was just thinking recently about the fact that I never really buy Wachusett anymore, even though as recently as a couple years ago I was getting Larry and the mixed IPA 12 packs fairly frequently. Crazy how quickly the landscape has changed.

 

I tried the Wally a few weeks ago and enjoyed it. I live 5 minutes away from Wachusett so I'm glad to see my local brewery putting out a "new era" NE IPA. Hopefully this is the start of some exciting new brews from them.

 

Does anyone know when/if these will be hitting widespread distribution in cans? Sounds like the people in this thread only had it on draft or at the brewery if I'm reading right.

 

Sounds interesting, I'll have to check that out, haven't had anything from Wachusett in a long time. Long Trail has made a similar move with their Space Juice release and Green Blaze IPA. Space Juice is more along the lines of the NE style and Green Blaze just more of a modern IPA. I have never loved Long Trail but Space Juice was surprisingly good. Green Blaze is easy to get and Space Juice has limited releases every few months.

 

Wachusett is another one that flies under the radar. They don't have anything over the top mind-blowing, but they make good beers. their IPA was my daily drinker beer for a long time. I grabbed a pack of the Bella-Czeck pils for the game the other night - a real nice beer.
I used to drink the Country Ale after a day skiing at Wachusett mountain.
Good to hear they're bringing out a few new things, especially after they got in trouble a couple years ago (serving underage at the brewery, I think? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

It'll be interesting to see if they can keep the quality consistent. I bailed on Larry shortly after the cans came out because the batch to batch variation was to high.

 

I had a can or two at King's (because King's sucks, and that may have been the best option). I was pleasantly surprised. Not my favorite for the style, but it was a nice drinker. That's definitely meant as a compliment, because a lot of these breweries can really screw up pale lagers.

I'd rather have this around than another "New England-style" IPA anyways. I can get one of those IPAs easily in MA. A local Czech Pils...not so much. But I doubt you'll find many people getting more excited about a Pils than an IPA...

 

Looking up the description on untappd for Wally you get:
The Wachusett brewers banded together their over 160 years of brewing experience and developed a New England IPA.

This IPA yields an ABV of 7%. The IBUs are 70. This is achieved by a variety of hops including: CTZ, Bravo, Citra, Simcoe, and an experimental hop named 431.

The aroma is from an experimental 2-step dry hopping process using Citra and 431.

The yeast is an English strain that is used in some of our other beers. The color is around 4 SRM and this beer is purposefully cloudy. The grains in this beer are: 2-row pale, Vienna, Melanoidin, Acidulated malt, Torrified Red Wheat and Golden Oats.

The brew team is hard at work developing several new creative beers we will
be presenting in 2017. Enjoy with Friends.

 

That last sentence is good to hear. I have no idea how well Wachusett is doing business wise, but I like seeing older breweries that I might take for granted mixing things up a bit.

And @AlcahueteJ is right that we're hardly lacking for more IPAs, but if they can bring it to market at a decent price it'll be a worthy addition to the scene. The pickings for $10 local four/six packs are a bit thin these days (all hail Jack's Abby).

 

I agree I think its great if we can see some of these old dogs doing new tricks. I'm not expecting TreeHouse quality per se but the more beers of this style available from non nano breweries perhaps the less I'll be spending per beer which would be great. As mentioned we certainly do have a ton of IPA's but breweries like Wachusett are probably the most likely to get squeezed in the current market so its good to see them branching out.

I have one of the bella check pils sitting in my fridge so I'm interested to see how that is now. One thing for sure in a couple of years the companies who make good beers other than just IPA's and BA stouts will still be around but the IPA only ones may not. Wow just re-read this post and its a lot of random thoughts streamed together

 

It seems like more and more NE brewries are adapting to the NE IPA craze and putting out some great, cheap alternatives (thought not all are in the same vein). Ipswich Route 101, Long Trail Green Blaze, Otter Creek Free flow and Backseat Burner, etc. are all easy to find and <$10. Only trouble is finding them fresh.

 

I really hope breweries don’t abandon their current IPAs and feel they HAVE to brew juicyjuice beers instead. If they’re forced to do it to stay in business, then fine. But I hope breweries like Wachusett know that their current IPAs are completely legit, and some of us find a beer like Green Monstah to be very tasty for the type of IPA it’s going for. I want IPA variety, not a sea of one-dimensional juicyjuice clones.

 

I may have overstated things a bit, but if you add in Jack's Abby and Castle Island I think that practically covers all of them

Totally agree. I like seeing breweries mix it up but generally not at the expense of their long standing lineups. I'm thinking things like Cape Ann introducing Deadeye and the BeerWorks getting themselves noticed again with Contender.

I'd love to see the Wachusett IPA replace the "lite" IPA with something new in their 12 packs. As you say, the others (even the original) are perfectly good stuff.

 

erf, that's a horrendous error of a sentence in my last post. That should say:

"I'd love to see Wachusett replace the "lite" IPA with something new in their 12 packs"

 

Ha, thanks. I read it and thought, "I'm not really sure what he meant there...replace the Lite with the Wachusett IPA (or Green Monstah even?) and then an additional new beer in the mix pack on top of that?...or is there some beer called Wachusett Original?..."

 

Are you thinking of the Country Pale? A very nice beer IMO.

I give credit to Wachusett for doing a Session IPA before it was cool - and even calling it what it is more accurately - as a "Light" IPA.