Hazy Arguments to Extract the Truth

It’s funny how things work. Trends develop, then people grumble about them. “You’re destroying the old ways. This isn’t right! You’re a terrible person because you like this thing, etc.” It’s gone on through history from well before people getting bent out of shape at Chaucer for producing a vernacular story (The Canterbury Tales—aka the bane of high-school students) or the Beatles and their mop tops.

The beer world is not immune. Look all the way back to when hops first started their way toward prominence. They were resisted—not traditional, they said, no good for you. There are myths about hops being called pernicious and wicked—an attitude reflected in the precraft-brew tastes of macro America—but yes, our beloved, industrydriving hops were once an ill-considered trend.

Today, the debate still rages, although the battle lines are in new places. The latest front is the hazy IPA, just the latest in a long line of arguments about what constitutes an IPA. In the past 20 years of American brewing, we’ve seen the original East Coast vs. West Coast battle (malt character or no), the rise of the double IPA (“Hey, isn’t that just another name for a barleywine?!”), the IBU Wars, and the brief appearance of the black IPA before people remembered that porter was a better idea.

The hazy “juicy” thing has irritated people left and right as well as won a ton of adherents who seek out the latest prized goodies. It’s easy to see both sides.

The Traditionalist View on Hazy IPAS

Haziness is a sign of lazy brewing, and there are a lot of bad hazy IPAS out there.

Haziness only belongs to certain styles, such as hefeweizen and witbier. IPA is supposed to be bitter, not just “hoppy.”

Hazy IPAS have an unwelcoming and unpleasant mouthfeel that impedes drinking.

Once you get past the label, it’s hard to tell different hazy IPAS from a brewer apart because the flavor is overwhelmingly hops oil.

The Modernist View on Hazy IPAS

The style showcases massive hops aromas and flavors without being bitter.

The haze adds a dramatic appearance to the beer that reinforces the juicy hops character. (We drink first with our eyes!)

Haziness is derived from a combination of hops oils and protein transformations, not leftover yeast and dregs.

Hazy IPAS are more approachable than old-school bitter-focused American IPAS.

The ephemeral nature of hazy IPA means it can only truly be captured in a local market.

You know the problem with listing out things like that? I can totally see fair scores in each list. (I know I wrote them, so naturally I’m going to). I fight against the laziness perception, I prefer more bitter IPAS, and after a while, I’d be hard pressed to tell you the difference between one can and another. At the same time, I can’t believe the hops aromas, and when the beer is done right and in good shape, I hate to admit it—but the haze can be dramatic.

Safe to say, as much as the traditionalists have fervently wished for it—the hazy IPA doesn’t appear to be following in the retreating footsteps of its earlier trendy cousin, the black IPA. Sure, it may recede from the omnipresent heights of today, but it’s got a foothold, and it’s staying.

After all this time, we’ve got a pretty good bead on what causes that glowing craziness. You just need an appropriate yeast strain, some good protein-rich adjuncts, and a ton of late-addition hops to push the oil content sky high. It’s a technique like anything else. Whether or not it appeals to you, well, that’s your ball to call.

In other words, if you’re steeping grains (and as much as I believe in the power of extract, you really should be steeping fresh-cracked grains), you can steep your cracked oat malt and get adequate conversion. Just watch your crush. Oat malt is remarkably skinny and can slip through a lot of mill gaps unharmed. For that reason, I like to mix in pale malt to aid in crushing and add some more heft to the steeping liquid. If you’re feeling cheeky, throw in some Golden Naked Oats for sweet oat character as well.

Just keep in mind that you want your gruel to land in the 150–165°F (66–74°C) range for 20 minutes.

Brewing It

Surprisingly, that’s the toughest nut for an extract brewer to crack in the arena of hazy brewing. Beyond this point, it’s just being sensible. When shopping for extract, choose the freshest palest liquid extract you can find. Look for extracts that call out a Pilsner character.

Choose a strong haze-helping yeast— Wyeast 1318 London Ale III is a solid goto. Look also for Imperial A38 Juice (see “Finding the Right Yeast to Create Hazy IPAS,” page 74 for more about this one) and White Labs WLP066 London Fog, among others. Get a starter going to make some healthy sugar eaters.

On brew day, steep your grains and watch the odd swirling character of the oat malt come out. After you strain and rinse the grains and bring your grain tea to a boil, take your pot off the heat and stir in 1⁄4 to

1⁄3 of the extract. This small addition helps adjust the ph of the wort, which will make the hops chemistry work more efficiently.

Once the wort is back to the boil, I like a small addition of bittering hops such as Warrior, but I’m a bitter West Coaster.

Since we’re not extracting bitterness, a short boil suffices. I go for 20 minutes, remove the kettle from the heat, and add the rest of the extract. I bring it back to the boil for 10 minutes, then cool the wort to 170°F (77°C).

And now, this is where the true fun of the style comes in—it’s time for your hops to take a bath. Stir the kettle vigorously and add your hops for 20 minutes. Your hops steep, unleashing goodness.

Chill your wort down with dilution water (if doing a concentrated boil) or any process that works for you. Pitch your healthy yeast and wait 3 days. After 3 days, hit the

fermentor with more hops and let the final bit of magic happen. Interactions between the yeast, the hops oils, and the proteins in the wort will cause a stable haze to form. If you’re lucky, you’ve got a beautiful golden orangey glow to look forward to.

After 7 days on the hops (10 days total fermentation), you should be ready to bottle. At this point, your IPA is on a ticking time clock toward oxidized hops characters that will make you blue. So work carefully and quickly—bottle or keg with the minimum amount of oxygen exposure possible. Let your beer carb and enjoy. These beers are best within a month, so get to it! You need to make room to make more!

Let’s stop and back up for a second—what changes if I’m brewing all-grain? Not much.

I’m replacing the liquid malt extract with 12 lb (5.4 kg) of pale malt and mashing that at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes with my other grains and then sparging. All told I’m adding more time (while saving money on the grain), but all the boil, fermentation, and packaging steps? Exactly the same.

And best of all, there’s nothing stopping any of us time-strapped brewers from throwing one of these together right now. Step out of your extracthating haze and make the beer. You’ll be high on hops in no time!