Make Juice, Not Haze

It’s time to call a truce by ramping up the juiciness of the NEIPA style without resorting to murk-inducing techniques designed to send a visual signal of “juicy.”

Juicy doesn’t have to mean hazy. And therein lies, Josh Weikert believes, the foundation of a compromise with the potential to end the incipient war between the “Hazers” and the “Clears.” It’s time to call a truce by ramping up the juiciness of the style without resorting to murk-inducing techniques designed to send a visual signal of “juicy.”

IN THE RECENTLY RELEASED Brewers Association beer-guidelines update, fans of New England–style IPAS and their lighter/ stronger pale ale and double IPA cousins had cause for celebration: They made it! BA recognition! GABF medals for NEIPAS!

Meanwhile, those who aren’t dedicated fans of the Haze Craze shook their heads and despaired of ever being able to order an IPA again without worrying that they’re about to be poured a glass of fruity gravy. Careful readers, though, might have noticed a subtle linguistic nuance in the guidelines. They weren’t titled “New England Style Beers” or “Hazy Beers.” They were described in a different way: “Juicy or Hazy Ale Styles.” (My emphasis added.)

Juicy doesn’t have to mean hazy. And therein lies, I believe, the foundation of a compromise with the potential to end the incipient war between the “Hazers” and the “Clears.” If haze is, as many brewers stated in the early days of the NEIPA and its ilk, not really a feature but rather a by-product of the hunt for brighter, juicier fruit flavors, then maybe brewers can develop procedures that produce clear beers that are as juicy as their opaque competitors. Or, more accurately, this is fundamentally an empirical question: which beer is juicier? Do they need to be hazy or do they not? It takes haze out of the equation as a feature, at least for those who aren’t producing hazy beer for its own sake (and I don’t see any reason why you should). If

I can brew a juicy, brightly fruity IPA or pale ale and avoid haze at the same time, wouldn’t that be preferable? It’s a bit like if we could make intensely roasty stouts at an SRM of 4—would it make sense to load them down with Midnight Wheat just to make them appear dark?

So, let’s get into how you can ramp up the juiciness of your beers without resorting to applesauce and wheat-germ additions designed to send a visual signal of “juicy.”

Hops Selection

Clearly, hops selection is a major building block here. It’s not the only building block, as we’ll discuss, but it’s a logical place to start. We have two basic questions to answer. First, which hops varieties are best suited to producing juicy flavors? This could be either by virtue of the content of their oils or the overall amount of oils in the cone, or (preferably) both. Second, what form should the hops take to produce the biggest, brightest flavors?

Between those two considerations, we have a high level of control: the right hops in terms of flavor, with the highest overall level of oil content, in a form that makes those oils most accessible is going to be our winner. After that, it’s how you use them, but we’ll save that for the next section. To start, let’s picture ourselves standing before the hops fridge at the local homebrew shop.

Your eye and hand might go first to the new and/or trendy hops. Varieties such as Citra, Galaxy, and Equinox (or Ekuanot) were developed with tropical-fruit flavors in mind and are obvious go-to choices. Terroir and breeding also make the “Down Under” hops a solid choice, with varieties such as Motueka and Riwaka adding fresh lime notes to the more-conventional passion-fruit and mango flavors. For sure, these are hops that make a statement—but they’re far from your only choices.

Sometimes it pays to think outside the box. Seeing the popularity of fruit-forward varieties and wanting to get in on the action, hops producers and researchers in classic hops-growing regions of Europe are cultivating citrus and tropical fruit–flavored hops such as Polaris and Pilgrim. These are in addition to the older but now more commonly available Hull Melon and Mandarina Bavaria hops that kick in some melon and tangerine flavors. Fruitiness abounds.

It also never hurts to revisit the classic American hops. There’s a reason that Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Ahtanum, and others are still widely available: they’re outstanding hops. Blends such as Zythos, Falconer’s Flight 7C’s, and Falconer’s Flight let you take advantage of the full range of

citrus flavors that made American craft beers so popular in the first place.

Total oil content is another variable we might consider. Conventional wisdom and a variety of anecdotes suggest that hops with greater oil content are more likely to produce stronger flavors. This is intuitively plausible, but has not been conclusively demonstrated. A 2016 article in the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists reported on a test of this proposition in dry hopping and found no correlation between total oil content and aroma perceptions. It should be noted that this is only one study, of one variety (Cascade), in one application (dry hopping), but given the counterintuitive findings on hops presentation and the interaction of hops oils in other studies, it cannot be dismissed easily. Still, higher oil content is unlikely to reduce hops aroma, so selecting a higher oil-content variety (Citra, Equinox, Ahtanum, Amarillo, Cascade, among others) might still be preferable.

Finally, you should take into account the form of the hops. Accessibility of the oils in the cone varies based on whether we’re using whole-flower hops, pellets, or powders/ extracts. Broadly speaking, it’s easier to develop bigger hops aromas and flavors using pellets over whole-flower hops. There is anecdotal evidence that hops powder and extracts produce greater aromas still, but my own experience with them has yielded uncertain results relative to pellets alone. To give yourself the best chance of bright juicy flavors and aromas, I recommend a combination of pellets and powders.

The right hops in the right form should get you off on the right foot to producing a juicy beer even without the haze that we might associate with juicy beers.

Juicing Your Hops

Once you have your hops, it’s time to use them.

The most obvious piece of advice to hang on to those juicy fruity flavors is to push your hops later into the boil (if you boil at all, but more on that in a second). Hops oils are volatile. Most volatilize 50 percent or more within fifteen minutes in the boil: linalool hits that mark in six minutes. If you’re boiling it at all, don’t assume you’ll get much flavor out of it. Instead, consider moving most of your flavor/ aroma hops to a whirlpool. Post-boil (but pre-chill) hops can be added and oils extracted simply by steeping them in the hot-but-not-boiling wort. Wait until the temperature drops below 180°F (82°C), then add several ounces of those juicy hops and leave them to steep for 20–30 minutes. You’ll still pull some IBUS, but mostly you’ll loosen up those flavor-producing oils, and the longer the beer sits at those temperatures (140–170°F/60–77°C), the greater the flavor and aroma you’ll yield.

You should also make extensive use of dry hopping—and not just once but