Hazy brews have low bitterness, rich flavor

If you’re like most people, almost every beer you’ve ever been served has been crystal clear. Aside from a few specific styles — think wheat-based beers like Hefeweizens and Belgian wits — brewers strive for a product that is clear as glass.

But over the past couple of years, a trend has emerged out of New England that is quickly taking the country by storm. Hazy, cloudy, hop-loaded IPAs are currently the hottest style of beer, and their appearance goes against everything brewers have always been told to do.

One such offering, the NE (New England) IPA, got its start in Vermont, but we’ve already seen it reach Hawaii — a great thing because this style of beer depends on freshness.

Why would a brewer purposely make its beer as cloudy as orange juice? It’s all about the hop flavor and aroma, which IPA lovers absolutely crave and NE IPAs pack in with an abundance.

The Alchemist, a small Vermont brewery, gets much of the credit for creating the NE IPA. It brews one of the most sought-after and highly rated beers in the world, Heady Topper. Although not as hazy as more recent interpretations, Heady Topper featured a whopping tropical-fruit hop aroma and flavor while keeping a very low bitterness profile.

Because it is in extremely limited supply, many breweries within the region started to imitate it and make their own. Other small regional breweries in the Northeast have become overnight sensations with their small-batch, juicy IPAs.

Trendsetters like Treehouse (Massachusetts), Hill Farmstead (Vermont), Trillium (Massachusetts) and Other Half (New York) released beers that were fresh, unfiltered and packed with hop flavors.

Soon the trend spread across the country as more and more people got a taste of these new, smoother IPAs. Beer fans in Hawaii had shipments regularly sent via overnight or two-day mail to insure they could enjoy fresh beers.

When the team at Beer Lab HI opened a small brewery on University Avenue last year, they quickly became huge fans of the style. After loyal customers shared a few cans with them, they decided this was a type of IPA they wanted to make.

Head brewer Kevin Teruya said appearance is secondary to making sure the hops are vibrant, fresh and as pungent as possible. He also considers it an evolving style with various interpretations.

At Beer Lab HI they’ve brewed a number of hazy IPAs and pale ales they call either Vermont or NE, referencing the origins of the style.

Compared with a West Coast IPA, which features a much more pronounced bitterness and resinous flavor, these hazy NE-style IPAs have a much smoother mouthfeel and mellower bitterness. Teruya says they have been experimenting with ingredients and process to figure out how to maximize hop flavors while keeping the bitterness to a minimum. This is a difficult task since hops naturally give off bitterness when heated.

The haziness can be intentional or a byproduct of the ingredients and brewing process. Brewers at Beer Lab HI use flaked oats, wheat and rye, which leave proteins in the beer that turn hazy but also create a smooth mouthfeel and creamy finish.

Along with “massive amounts of hops” and not filtering the beer, a haze naturally forms, says Teruya. Since filtering strips a lot of hop flavor and aroma, brewers opt to forgo this step, and most IPA fans are not complaining.

A downside of unfiltered beer that’s full of hops is a very short shelf life, so these should be consumed fresh. Hop flavors and aromas are extremely volatile: They will either dissipate in a few weeks or become less pungent if the beer is not kept chilled.

Beer Lab HI’s fresh IPA releases are some of their biggest hits, with local fans quickly consuming entire batches. Its latest release, Nimbus2 (squared), is a double IPA clocking in at 8 percent alcohol by volume and has the appearance of orange juice, but there is no actual juice in the beer. Huge aromas of pineapple, tangerine and mango dominate, and the silky texture makes this beer far too easy to drink for its sizable alcohol content.

Beer Lab HI intends to continue making these types of IPAs. Be on the lookout for a number of new releases over the next few weeks.

Tim Golden, a certified cicerone, shares his obsession with all things craft beer monthly. See his blog, “Beer in Hawaii,” at beerinhawaii.com.