![]() Sure enough, it was an epiphany: just enough citrus rind bitterness upfront, followed by an incredibly long juicy tropical fruit walk-off in a thick, savory body. It was called SqueezIt ("squeeze it" - as in an orange). He wouldn't stop talking about how good it was. My initial hazy IPA conversion experience happened at Corridor Brewery and Provisions, in April, where a guy at the bar was drinking a glass of what looked like some turbid intersection between mushroom soup and orange juice. But he sipped through a few and decided, yes, when done well, something new and legitimate is happening that deserves to be explored. Mosher wasn't initially convinced there was much to hazy IPA. Randy Mosher, who has written five books about brewing and beer appreciation, is a partner at Forbidden Root and helps formulate many of its recipes. Pichman just so happens to work with one of those people. "The people who wrote the home-brew books don't know what to do with it." "It's the ultimate version of questioning your parents," Pichman said. It's basically throwing the rulebook out the window. The classic sharp and bitter hop flavors - think fresh pine - are traded for juicy sweetness and, when done well, nuances such as orange rind, honey, grass or even fresh marijuana. The beer is then dry hopped again at the end of fermentation. It also results in - you guessed it - haze. In a hazy IPA, hops are only added late in the boil and again unusually early during fermentation, when the beer is still churning in the tank and hops interact with yeast in a way that withdraws maximum fruity-citrus character. ![]() Those IPAs then get more hops at the tail end of fermentation to punch up aromatics. Classic IPA recipes call for hops to be added throughout the boil, when they mostly contribute bitterness. Most crucial are the immense amounts of hops employed and when they are added. Even licking a cut orange would have offered more balance at least there would be a degree of acidity. As Pichman said, they would "disappear" - floating away on the palate. The ones that didn't work didn't close the loop. They had more body, oomph and continuity to close the loop. Even though the alcohol itself is well hidden, the bigger versions - the hazy double IPAs at about 8 percent alcohol - held together best. The best examples had low carbonation and creamy textures (or "mouthfeel," as the beer nerds say). ![]() Pichman made an astute observation: They're so thick and devoid of bitterness that hazy IPAs can have more in common with fruited wheat beer than traditional IPA. What made them work? They walked an impossibly fine line: sweet, lush, fruity, soft, gentle, approachable and, yes, balanced by just the faintest wisp of herbal bitterness. The ones that worked were often quite similar to the ones that didn't, which made them just as fascinating as they were delicious. The rest ranged from good for a few sips - Stay Lit (a Forbidden Root collaboration with Three Floyds), Fresh IIPA (Hubbard's Cave) and the wonderfully named Van Hazen (Corridor Brewery & Provisions) - to a handful of messy duds. They all had a beginning, a middle and an end. I went in skeptical and left ready to stock my fridge with three of them: Forbidden Root's Snoochie Boochies, Noon Whistle's Gummypocalypse and Mikerphone Brewing's Check 1, 2. It was probably the most comprehensive tasting of hazy IPAs the city had ever seen, due in part to the fact that the style didn't exist in Chicago 18 months ago.ĭuring the next couple of hours, Pichman and I drank through all 13 hazy IPAs, discussing what worked, what didn't and why. ![]() It was late May, the last night of Chicago Craft Beer Week, and Forbidden Root was hosting a hazy IPA tap takeover. Or, as I said to Forbidden Root brewer BJ Pichman, as 13 five-ounce pours of hazy IPA sat before us, "It needs to close the loop." It simply means a journey with a beginning, a middle and an end. Balance doesn't just mean a prescribed degree of bitterness or malt character. In the rush to lower bitterness, many makers of hazy IPAs have betrayed the notion of balance. That greater whole should not taste like just one thing. Beer, at its finest, is the equivalent of a seasoned dish from an expert chef: multiple ingredients working together to create a greater whole. Orange juice is the guts of an orange, one ingredient imparting one flavor. I was among the detractors for a simple reason: Beer is not juice. You can hand a hazy IPA to beer drinkers who profess to not like IPA, and their eyes will brighten, they'll cock their head in that, Oh, I like this! kind of way, and they will say, "Oh, I like this!" Hazy IPA is often so "juicy" that it's compared to orange juice, both in appearance and taste.Īnd that is the principle reason that the style has scores of detractors.
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