Power to the people. In any industry that produces consumer products, trends come and trends go. Some are driven top-down by companies hoping to find an audience for an idea they’re enthusiastic about, while other trends start small and grow purely on the back of popular demand—sometimes in spite of industry opposition.
No trend, as of late, has overcome so much industry backlash as the growth of New England–style IPAs. What started as a ripple with a small cadre of brewers led by John Kimmich of The Alchemist and his genre-defining Heady Topper became a regional swell once Nate Lanier of Tree House, Jean-Claude Tetreault of Trillium, and others cut the bitterness down and piled on more juicy fruit-forward hops flavors.
Now, in fading days of 2016, the swell is turning into quite the tsunami with breweries such as Great Notion, Odd 13, WeldWerks, Prison City, Brew Gentlemen, Transient, and others taking it national. Curiously, some of these breweries, and many of the beers they’re known for now, didn’t exist the last time we put out an issue focusing on IPAs (and that was only a year ago). It’s not an understatement to say that their focus on this emerging style has helped catapult them to notoriety in the beer world.
Now we brace for impact, as more established breweries overcome their inborn bias against cloudy beer and jump into the hazy IPA movement with their own iterations. Often, this means unlearning typical brewery best practices, which can be a hard thing for any brewery to tackle. It also means overcoming packaging and distribution challenges, as the style needs to be enjoyed while very fresh. But the demand is something that most breweries can no longer resist—as Coronado Brewmaster Rich Brooks mentioned to me, despite his initial objections to making their New England–style IPA, it was the fastest pilot brew to sell out of their taproom, ever.
You have to give the people what they want, and clearly today that means options for low bitterness, fruit-forward, cloudy, soft, and fluffy IPAs. While some old school brewers will continue to resist and level challenges of it being “lazy brewing,” we’re here to celebrate the forward-thinking brewers who can see through the haze to the smiling faces of the drinkers behind their glasses.
Want to make one yourself? You’re in luck. Neil Fisher, cofounder and head brewer for WeldWerks Brewing has you covered with everything you need to know along with the recipe for their remarkably delicious (and top-scoring) Juicy Bits.
And before I forget, this is our first-ever Best Of issue—a celebration of what’s great in the world of brewing. These bests were determined by you through our reader poll, and for fun and perspective we’ve asked some of our writers and generally knowledgeable beer folks to weigh in with their personal bests for the year, too.
I hope you enjoy this first-ever Best Of issue and our feature package on New England–style IPAs. We made it for you.
Jamie Bogner
Cofounder & Editorial Director
Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®
