This week I take a closer look at brewing the vaunted New England IPA (NEIPA), also called Hazy IPA and what makes it so different from other IPAs.
What Makes Hazy IPAs Different
Some 20+ years ago the Craft Beer world exploded into IPAs and the West Coast IPA and its variants became very popular, now making up more than 50% of the beer brewed in most US craft breweries. Around 2003, John Kimmich at The Alchemist started brewing Heady Topper as an occasional offering at their Waterbury and later Stowe plants. He had moved to Burlington in 1994 to learn from legendary brewer Greg Noonan. By 2013, The Alchemist was overwhelmed by demand and moved to a larger location near Stowe, VT. (Ref: Wikipedia) Most credit The Alchemist and Heady Topper as being the first New England IPA, also now called Hazy IPA.
Hazy or New England IPA breaks the mold for IPAs in many ways. First, the obvious haze often from oats or wheat in the grist is quite a change from the traditional clear IPA. Second, these beers feature a tropical fruity finish, often from the combination of yeast and selected hop varieties. In addition the hazy IPA is often made with little to no bittering hops, and instead use moderate whirlpool and heavy dry hop additions. In fact they are often not as bitter as traditional IPAs, though they still pack a strong hoppy aroma from substantial dry hop levels. Finally they use a softer, rounder water profile which de-accentuates the hops giving a slightly smoother body and drinkable finish than a traditional American IPA.
Looking at the 2021 BJCP Style Guide for Hazy IPA (Category 21C), Hazy is described as “An American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze.” It has a original gravity of 1.060-1.085, ABV of 6-9%, moderate bitterness for an IPA of 25-60 IBUs and light color between 3-7 SRM.
Brewing the Hazy IPA
Don’t let the round soft finish and haze fool you, brewing a great hazy IPA does take some skill. It actually incorporates some of the more recent knowledge accumulated in the last 10 years about water profiles, mashing, hop science and more. Its not necessarily technically a difficult beer to brew, but you do need to be careful about the selection of ingredients and techniques when making one.
Starting with the grist bill, the base malts are often a combination of pilsner and pale malt. Some recipes I’ve seen split these 50-50, while others use exclusively pale malt. A combination of wheat and malted or rolled oats, typically making up 10-15% of the grist provides a lot of the haze needed. Oats and white wheat probably work best here, but unmalted wheat is also a good choice as it tends to drive up protein levels and ferments poorly contributing to cloudiness. Carapils/Dextrine malt to add some body and mouthfeel is also often used as an adjunct, and I’ve seen people add lactose though I don’t really think the additional sweetness is needed.
The water profile is critical for a good hazy IPA. For normal IPAs we often drive up the sulfite to chloride ratio in our water to enhance the bitterness. For a hazy IPA we actually do the opposite – we drive up the chloride level to lower the perception of bitterness and provide a softer, rounder finish to the beer. Calcium Chloride is often used as an additive to raise the Chloride levels significantly if we start with a relatively neutral water profile.
Mash strategies differ slightly here, but I believe the majority of brewers shoot for a medium body mash profile with the conversion step in the middle of the temperature range (approximately 152 F/67 C). There are others who prefer a slightly elevated mash temperature in the full body range to enhance body and lower fermentability and that would probably be my approach to this style. The full body mash (156 F/69 C) will give you slighlty lower attenuation and aid a bit in developing the desired haze. For this style you also need to consider mash pH as there is very little acidity in the grains, so you will likely need to adjust your mash water to get it into the 5.2-5.5 range.
For yeast selection, I recommend you stick with a yeast designed for the Hazy/NEIPA style. Because this style is unique, and the fruity and hazy character can be enhanced by the yeast, using an in-style yeast for this particular beer is a good approach.
Hop selection and hopping techniques are very important for your hazy IPA. First let’s discuss hop technique. Some NEIPAs are made with no bittering or boil additions. They get their hoppy flavor completely from whirlpool or very high levels of dry hopping. A few commercial examples actually use no boil or whirlpool hops at all but instead use multiple dry hop additions.
If you are not an experienced hazy IPA brewer, I recommend using a small boil hop addition to get some bitterness, and then adding a significant dry hop addition. More advanced brewers can consider going with whirlpool additions for bitterness, and then again a sizeable dry hop addition. You can calculate the bitterness for either whirlpool or boil hops easily using BeerSmith.
As I mentioned dry hops are critically important for hazy IPAs. Huge dry hop rates are used in many hazy IPAs, often in multiple additions. Also you can use a dry hops during active fermentation to enhance biotransformations during the latter parts of fermentation. Hops high in thiols, geraniol and linalool used in this way can enhance the tropical fruit flavors of the beer. Recent research also indicates the optimal dry hopping time is roughly 24-72 hours. So a reasonable dry hop schedule, assuming you are using high thiol hops, would be to add one dose of dry hops shortly after peak fermentation lasting for perhaps 48 hours. Then add a second dose of dry hops after fermentation has completed again lasting about 48 hours. I will also note that hop rates here are high with many commercial brewers using 1oz or more of dry hops per gallon (4 liters)!
Hop variety selection is critical for a hazy IPA. In order to get the fruity tropical finish so many drinkers appreciate, you need to use copious quantities of fruity, tropical hops for your whirlpool and dry hop additions. Hops high in thiols, which are primarily the US, Australian and New Zealand varieties are required. You also would like to select hops high in linalool and geraniol hop oils for use in the dry hop as these contribute a lot of the tropical fruit finish and are also open to biotransformation by the yeast. Not surprisingly this points us to some of the most desireable hops like Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin, Mouteuka, Simcoe, Citra and others.
Some brewers will slightly underpitch their yeast and also ferment at the higher end of the temperature range. Underpitching puts some stress on the yeast, which can result in more character and mild off flavors in the finished beer. Fermenting slightly warm can enhance fruity ester production and also contribute some additional character to the beer.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s article on Hazy IPAs. Thanks for joining me on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. If you want to take the guesswork out of brewing, please try my BeerSmith recipe software from BeerSmith.com. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or my podcast (also on itunes and youtube) for more great tips on homebrewing.