Never had a NEIPA

[day_trippr]

Whether it's "real beer" or not It's probably for history to decide. The history of beer has some significant shifts in styles and ingredients over the years / centuries.

True. But all of that history is additive and inclusive - nobody proposed tossing a beverage brewed with the classic ingredients that historically lead to "beer" out of the club because it didn't conform to someone's narrow taste...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I have, actually.

 

[day_trippr]

[shrug] Nobody actually cared then...or now...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

When you consider how great my ideas are, it's amazing that no one has ever listened to me.

 

[day_trippr]

Don't sell yourself short. People listen...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

 

[Airborneguy]

 

[whoaru99]

Don't need my tall boots going though snow this year, but they sure come in handy going through this thread.

 

[joshbuhl]

What's a good one to try?

Hi Clint,

Forgot to quote you and don't know if this got swallowed by the rants at the end.

I'm new here, but if anybody wants my 2cents, here they are:

Brewing NEIPAs has been the focus of my home brewing for the past three years. Tasting the world's renowned NEIPAs In order to "set my sights" and know what my ultimate goal is, has been a part of that journey.

In addition to a couple hundred lessor known NEIPAs, I've had Heady Topper, Focal Banger, (Extra) Juicy Bits, Julius, Oh-J, a few Root&Branch's, a few Other Half's and about 10 different beers each from Treehouse and Trillium, to name some of the more famous ones I've had.

For my money, Trillium makes the best NEIPAs hands down. Every single beer I've had from Trillium has been amazing. Try DDH Melcher Street or DDH Stillings Street, for example. I've been nothing but disappointed by Treehouse and would never buy another of their beers. Also excellent have been Focal Banger (but Heady Topper was disappointing), Juicy Bits and Oh-J. The best European NEIPAs I've had are from Garage Brewing in Spain (the 'Soup' NEIPAs and their new "Ziplocked 24").

Cheers

 

[Nate R]

With few exceptions, beer is bright by default and that brightness is what helps present the subtle complexities of beer.

Wulp... i usually stay out of these pointless needless arguments... but i'm sober right now, and figure why not.
I bet "beer" as we mostly know it today (say, the last 200 years?) is NOTHING like 'beer' from 3,000-5,000 years ago... i think most can agree it was cloudy and not clear in the least (modern refridgeration has changed this). So in that sense, i bet a hazy looks more like beer from a thousand years ago than a crisp ale/lager.
Are we only comparing hazy to beer from the last few centuries?
Could one argue the 'clear beer' is not true to beer thusly?
Where does one draw the line? 300 years? 3,000 years? 30 years?

NEIPAs are made the same way other ales and lagers are made. Water, Grain, Yeast and Hops.

Yup. This. Modern technology has allowed specfic yeast strains, newer hopsl strains, and modern technology (pressure tanks, spunding) have made it possible.
However- most use modifed oats, so... no Purity law compliance here.

I did type ‘with very few exceptions’, but even if you wanted to cherry-pick a cloudy weiss beer, it would be a bit of a stretch to say it was representative of the vast majority of beers.

Yeah... pretty sure Germans own the 'modern' beer movement (or mainly Europeans)... of course we are talking only 500 years or so... but i would wager most beers 500 years ago contained a 'haze' of some kind...


Just my $0.02. An opinion only. Awaiting my blasting and destruction. ( i Have the over at 1.5 for personal attacks on my personal prefernces. Don't let me down!).

 

[mac_1103]

i'm sober right now, and figure why not

I think I see your problem.

 

[McMullan]

Wulp... i usually stay out of these pointless needless arguments... but i'm sober right now, and figure why not.
I bet "beer" as we mostly know it today (say, the last 200 years?) is NOTHING like 'beer' from 3,000-5,000 years ago... i think most can agree it was cloudy and not clear in the least (modern refridgeration has changed this). So in that sense, i bet a hazy looks more like beer from a thousand years ago than a crisp ale/lager.
Are we only comparing hazy to beer from the last few centuries?
Could one argue the 'clear beer' is not true to beer thusly?
Where does one draw the line? 300 years? 3,000 years? 30 years?


Yup. This. Modern technology has allowed specfic yeast strains, newer hopsl strains, and modern technology (pressure tanks, spunding) have made it possible.
However- most use modifed oats, so... no Purity law compliance here.

Yeah... pretty sure Germans own the 'modern' beer movement (or mainly Europeans)... of course we are talking only 500 years or so... but i would wager most beers 500 years ago contained a 'haze' of some kind...


Just my $0.02. An opinion only. Awaiting my blasting and destruction. ( i Have the over at 1.5 for personal attacks on my personal prefernces. Don't let me down!).

I’m not so sure. The primary ingredients, including yeast, produce bright (clear) beers by default, when used to make what most people consider beer. Nor is it insignificant, culturally speaking. It’s what brewers have worked with for centuries to develop beer styles. Then stumble along a bunch of pretentious millennials rejecting ‘normality’ of established culture for the sake of self gain, financial or emotional. They weren’t well equipped to improve whatever it was they didn’t like and just crudely added more and more and more hops. Such a crude strategy was unlikely to ever improve anything. They invented a novel barley-based hop ‘smoothie’ that sits more with cocktails than beer. That doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy hop smoothies or hazies, if that’s what they like. I’m among those who view hazies too different to be called beer. Worse, it seems to have become a distraction from what was genuine progress being promoted by craft brewing up to about 10 years ago. When it was about making great beer and rejecting big macros and corporatism. Now it seems to have been hijacked by some kind of hop-industrial complex promoting heavily hopped cocktails. It’s not about passion for progress and improving things. It’s all about profits and shareholder ’value’ at any cost.

 

[day_trippr]

Hilarious! Keep it up, nothing like an amazingly ridiculous rant to start off a Saturday morning

Cheers!

 

[wepeeler]

I’m not so sure. The primary ingredients, including yeast, produce bright (clear) beers by default, when used to make what most people consider beer. Nor is it insignificant, culturally speaking. It’s what brewers have worked with for centuries to develop beer styles. Then stumble along a bunch of pretentious millennials rejecting ‘normality’ of established culture for the sake of self gain, financial or emotional. They weren’t well equipped to improve whatever it was they didn’t like and just crudely added more and more and more hops. Such a crude strategy was unlikely to ever improve anything. They invented a novel barley-based hop ‘smoothie’ that sits more with cocktails than beer. That doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy hop smoothies or hazies, if that’s what they like. I’m among those who view hazies too different to be called beer. Worse, it seems to have become a distraction from what was genuine progress being promoted by craft brewing up to about 10 years ago. When it was about making great beer and rejecting big macros and corporatism. Now it seems to have been hijacked by some kind of hop-industrial complex promoting heavily hopped cocktails. It’s not about passion for progress and improving things. It’s all about profits and shareholder ’value’ at any cost.

Do you consider disabled/handicapped people real people? They're made with the same ingredients, after all. Asking for a friend.

 

[McMullan]

Do you consider disabled/handicapped people real people? They're made with the same ingredients, after all. Asking for a friend.

What does that have to do with beer and hazy hop cocktails? I certainly wouldn’t reduce people to ‘ingredients’ or judge them regardless. I find people generally more important than cocktails, tbh. Note too that many unfortunate people have disabilities because they aren’t made of the same ‘ingredients’. That’s what a disability is, by definition.

 

[Airborneguy]

Questions like that are how these conversations devolve into pointless arguments.

From this to that to Godwin’s Law.

 

[Alan Reginato]

Do you consider disabled/handicapped people real people? They're made with the same ingredients, after all. Asking for a friend.

Not a good argument, after all, everything is made with the same ingredients.
They only tastes different. And NEIPAs don't taste like beer. So, isn't beer, by some points of view.

 

[mac_1103]

I'd rather drink a malted barley/water/hops beverage that tastes like NEIPA than one that doesn't taste like anything at all.

 

[redrocker652002]

Questions like that are how these conversations devolve into pointless arguments.

From this to that to Godwin’s Law.

You mean we aren't there yet? Seems we hit pointless a while ago.

 

[McMullan]

I’d say try not to view the ingredients of beer in such a 1-dimensional way and focus a bit more on how they get used, e.g. proportionally to one another, to produce what most people consider to be a beer. Ironically, that’s partly why craft beer risks being reduced to hazy hop cocktails. Say we want to make something like self-raising flour. The recipe is about a cup of all-purpose flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt. If we keep adding more and more salt, without increasing the other ingredients proportionally, at some point we stop making self-raising flour, even though the ingredients are the same as used for making self-raising flour. See?

 

[wepeeler]

What does that have to do with beer and hazy hop cocktails? I certainly wouldn’t reduce people to ‘ingredients’ or judge them regardless. I find people generally more important than cocktails, tbh. Note too that many unfortunate people have disabilities because they aren’t made of the same ‘ingredients’. That’s what a disability is, by definition.

Not reducing or judging at all. We are all just ingredients that make up a final product. It parallels beer perfectly. Ingredients in, final product out. NEIPAs are, by definition, beer. There is no wiggle room. At all.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

 

[McMullan]

Not reducing or judging at all. We are all just ingredients that make up a final product. It parallels beer perfectly. Ingredients in, final product out. NEIPAs are, by definition, beer. There is no wiggle room. At all.

Living things don’t work as simple as that, though. Viewing living things as just ‘ingredients’ ignores so much. I don’t accept your logic here.

 

[wepeeler]

Living things don’t work as simple as that, though. Viewing living things as just ‘ingredients’ ignores so much. I don’t accept your logic here.

But beer is a living, evolving thing.

Anyways, I'm done. Going to brew up a NEIPA beer. Which the rest of the World, except you, acknowledges and accepts as real beer. Maybe I'll name it "DDH Real Hazy Beer"

I'm willing to ship you one

 

[day_trippr]

Torture him with pictures

 

[McMullan]

But beer is a living, evolving thing.

Technically, apart from the yeast, no, beer isn't really a living thing. Nor are hazy hop cocktails, in case you were wondering. Organic therefore variable, but not a living thing as such.

 

[DonT]

Technically, apart from the yeast, no, beer isn't really a living thing. Nor are hazy hop cocktails, in case you were wondering. Organic therefore variable, but not a living thing as such.

Now you're trying to take the yeast out of beer to prove your point. Sorry, try again.

 

[McMullan]

What?

 

[McMullan]

Coconut Banger Sour Double New England IPA​

"Back after a year long hiatus, one of our favorite fruited sour concoctions ever. Based off the island tiki rum drink called a PAINKILLER, we soured this double NEIPA grain bill and conditioned it on milk sugar, ground nutmeg, toasted coconut, Madagascar vanilla beans, blackstrap molasses, and hundreds of pounds of pineapple and tangerine puree. The result is a thick, sweet and sour tropical drink that is absolutely ridiculous."