Call them whatever you want to call them...juicy/turbid/hazy. The NE-style IPA trend is hitting the country in full force and is definitely the topic of conversation among hop heads. I plan on writing about the style and craze in a much longer piece later, but it's worth mentioning now just because of how many of these beers will appear on my top 5 list below (and last week as well). For now, I encourage you to read the in-depth BeerGraphs piece written by my friend Larry Koestler which I've linked above.
On to the top five beers of the week -
Just missed: The Veil THat Part, Other Half Simcoe/Wai-iti.
It's just a coincidence that two New Zealand hop featured beers didn't make it onto the top 5. Simcoe/Wai-iti is actually pretty good - bit of tropical fruit with a nice touch of bitterness. Unfortunately, there was a touch of alcohol on the back-end for me, something I sometimes get with Other Half's beers. After mellowing out for a week or two this will probably be quite nice.
On the other hand, THat Part, which is an exclusive Wai-iti hopped double IPA, was a mess. Lingering bitterness, a bit grassy with the touch of melon. Good on the first sip with a pretty nice aroma, but a bad aftertaste that made it unpleasant. Too bad.
5. LIC Beer Project - Higher Burnin'
LIC Beer Project is doing some really, really nice things lately. Their first two canned IPAs (which I unfortunately haven't tried, shame on me) Pile of Crowns and Backjump were huge hits among city hop heads. Today, they're releasing Breathe, a berliner style weisse barrel-fermented in oak puncheons and then conditioned on "an obscene amount of fruit." One Apricot, another blackberry/raspberry.
Higher Burnin' is another new beer from LIC, a double dry hopped IPA featuring Belma, Azacca and Amarillo hops. It's pretty soft, juicy and has deliciously delicate strawberry notes. Really great. No picture unfortunately!
4. Trillium Brewing - Little Rooster
Part of Trillium's Small Bird Series (lower ABV offerings), Little Rooster is a pale ale hopped with Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin. Light and citrusy, it's a crushable, hazy (there's that word) pale ale. However I think I prefer Pocket Pigeon in the series (Galaxy, Mosaic, Columbus).
3. Moonraker Brewing - YOJO
The hazy New England style IPA has hit California and Moonraker's version is killer. Facetiously named "You Only Juice Once," YOJO is a Citra and Amarillo hopped unfilted IPA. It's a really nice representation of the style.
2. Bissell Brothers - The Substance
Bissell Brothers flagship IPA is dank, super hoppy and seems to have gotten a bit hazier over the years. It's just super solid - I need to make a trip up to their new facility just outside the craft beer haven of Portland, Maine.
1. Other Half Brewing - Double Dry Hopped Double Mosaic Dream
Other Half knocked this one out of the park. Other Half is a brewery that gained acclaim from NYC for their west coast IPAs (Green Diamonds, All Green Everything) and their single hop series has grown tremendously in the last two years and is consistently pushing out awesome hoppy beers worth lining up for bi-weekly. DDH DMD is their first foray into (explicitly) double dry-hopping, a trend/technique that their frequent collaborators Trillium has mastered.
This beer is the standard (and also fantastic) Double Mosaic IPA dry-hopped a second time with a mosaic lupulin powder. Lupulin (the active ingredient in hops) powder is a newer hop product with the "plant filler stripped away" or "pure hops" as Other Half puts it. Anyway, DDH DMD is absolutely killer. Pure candied tropical fruits, not too sweet with a touch of citrus and bitterness. One of my favorite OH beers to date.
