The Colorado-based Brewers Association on Tuesday blessed the fruit-forward, low-bitterness style of hoppy beer that has consumed the craft industry in recent years, adding a whopping three “juicy or hazy” categories to its style guidelines — one each for pale ales, India pale ales and double IPAs.
That means breweries will be able to send their haziest, hoppiest creations to compete at this fall’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, the nation’s largest and most renowned beer competition.
Launched by New England craft brewers about five years ago, hazy IPA — also called New England-style IPA or double dry hopped IPA — is often compared to (or ridiculed as) orange juice, both in appearance and taste. But its approachability has made the style a hit, embraced by brewers and drinkers alike.
As soon as he saw news of the updated style guidelines Tuesday morning on Facebook, Mike Pallen, founder of Mikerphone Brewing in Elk Grove Village, knew he would finally enter the GABF competition for the first time. About half of Mikerphone’s production is hazy IPA (which he prefers to call double dry hopped IPA; the haze and fruitiness are a result of intense hopping).
“It’s exciting for us,” Pallen said. “We don’t brew into category, so at GABF and other events like that, there’s no way we could enter because we didn’t fit.”
Now that “juicy or hazy” is in fact a category, it gives Mikerphone — whose beers are some of the most popular in the Chicago area — a home. Pallen expects to submit what’s essentially Mikerphone’s flagship beer: Mikerphone Check 1, 2.
“It will be fun to see what comes out of GABF as the first gold medal winner,” he said.
Pallen’s primary concern: who will judge the beers? He said he still routinely meets hostility about the style.
"It’s still a hot button subject,” Pallen said. “I've traveled all over the U.S. and some brewers still say the nastiest things about the breweries that make these beers."
Yet, without a hazy IPA category at last year’s GABF, the competition had the distinction of being without a place to judge the hottest style in craft brewing. (The gold medal winner in the IPA category came from the Chicago area, but was far from hazy.) Another year without acknowledging the evolution in tastes might have argued for the competition’s declining relevance. Instead, its organizers adapted.
Members of the Brewers Association’s style guidelines committee tasted “a wide variety of beers that were thought to represent or approach this style,” the trade group said in a news release.
“What we discovered and verified was that there was a wide range of alcohol content for what was being perceived in the public as just one style,” Charlie Papazian, founder and past president of the Brewers Association, said in the news release.
“After evaluating appearance, aroma, bitterness, hop characters, mouthfeel and overall balance these beers gave a consistent impression that helped frame the Brewers Association’s inaugural guidelines for three styles of ‘juicy hazy ales.’”
The precise categories for this fall’s GABF competition — which are constructed from the organization’s style guidelines — will be announced this summer. The festival will be held Sept. 20 to 22.
“I think it’s going to be a very hotly contested category,” said Jerry Nelson, founder and brewer of Une Annee Brewery in Niles, which releases hazy IPA under its Hubbard’s Cave brand. “There are just so many people making these juicy, hazy IPAs lately and people will want to see where they stack up compared to others.”
The Brewers Association has also added three other categories to its style guidelines: contemporary American-style Pilsener (“sessionable craft brew lager beers with higher hop aroma than found in pre-prohibition style beers”); classic Australian-style pale ale and Australian-style pale ale (a “split from one to two Australian-Style Pale Ale categories (which) reflects tremendous diversity in the Australian craft beer market”); and gose and contemporary gose (“technical tweaks were made to create more differentiation between these two categories”).
by Josh Noel Contact Reporter Chicago Tribune
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