The Juicy, Hazy IPA Trend And Why It’s Time For It To Die

When you enter the tap-house of a brewery today, there is one style of beer that has become ubiquitous in recent years. That style is the New England Style IPA. Known for its hazy, orangish-yellow color and its tropical fruity taste notes, this new type of beer has become outrageously popular. And it’s getting old.

Other than perhaps sours, New England style IPAs, or India Pale Ales, are flooding the market more than any other variation of beer. As with anything, this has lowered the quality of the average IPA. Since everyone and their mom are just trying to push as many out as they can, a lot of breweries are rushing it. Obviously not many consumers are thrilled about this.

The style has even caught on with some macro-breweries. Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada have phased out some of their old products just to haze out with some newer varietals. I suppose this is the equivalent of your middle-aged uncle, who has always been kinda cool, but also kind of a dweeb, starting to play Fortnite so that he can relate with you. You appreciate the sentiment, but really, no thanks.

This style is also quite easily mimicked and built upon by home brewers, making it sort of the introductory style to begin your home-brewing journey, as you can see here, here, and here. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this sort of makes it a less respected style of beer by master brewers, both in the U.S. and beyond.

Obviously Colorado, especially Fort Collins, is something of a beer-lovers Mecca, so it should come as no surprise that breweries such as Odell and New Belgium have several varieties of juicy and hazy IPAs. I believe, at least for the Fort Collins community that really loves beer, that it should be up to these two flagship breweries to try and come up with the next big thing, at least for our community. So the question remains, who cares about New England Style IPAs anymore and who is willing to try a Colorado Style IPA?