New England IPA
If a beer could be a fruit, the New England IPA would be a mango — the opaque orange complexion, the smooth and rich body, and the flavor like juiced tropical fruit. It’s the style that pretty much defines the Maine beer scene nowadays. Crawl the state’s breweries and you’ll be hard-pressed to find more than a handful that don’t have at least one juice-bomb IPA on the tap list. Duck into any bottle shop and hazy IPAs seem to occupy 80 percent of the shelf space. Considering that basically nobody knew about this mega-hoppy beer style a decade ago — and considering that few hops are grown here — it’s about the unlikeliest of ales to have captivated our taste buds.
The improbable history goes thusly: hoppy beer got started in Britain in the 1700s, when brewers started adding extra hops to pales ales exported to colonial India, for hops’ preservative effect. Hence, India pale ale, or IPA, the style that finally caught on in the U.S. in the 1980s, on the West Coast, where most American hops are grown. West Coast brewers innovated a distinctly American style of IPA — piney and grapefruity, not floral and earthy like the English version, but still crystal-clear. It was a Vermont brewer in the ’90s who started messing around with unfiltered IPAs that were hazy and juicier and less bitter than traditional IPAs, but he didn’t get much attention for it until more recently.
That’s where Maine comes in. Right as beer nerds started taking note of hazy IPAs, Bissell Brothers Brewing, of Portland (and now also Milo), opened in 2013 and staked their reputation on a lineup of hazy ales. Now, the Bissells are considered among the OGs and true masters of the New England IPA. Other breweries, like Portland’s Definitive, have followed a similar model. And breweries around the country have hopped on the bandwagon — these days, New England-style IPAs are made in Pittsburgh and Denver and San Diego and just about everywhere else. But it’s Maine, as much as anyplace in New England, that beer pilgrims flock to experience the ale in its native environment. And for those of us who live here, with 130-plus breweries around, the nearest opaque, juicy pour is probably just down the road. — WILL GRUNEWALD
Will Grunewald is a Down East senior editor.
New England IPA
If a beer could be a fruit, the New England IPA would be a mango — the opaque orange complexion, the smooth and rich body, and the flavor like juiced tropical fruit. It’s the style that pretty much defines the Maine beer scene nowadays. Crawl the state’s breweries and you’ll be hard-pressed to find more than a handful that don’t have at least one juice-bomb IPA on the tap list. Duck into any bottle shop and hazy IPAs seem to occupy 80 percent of the shelf space. Considering that basically nobody knew about this mega-hoppy beer style a decade ago — and considering that few hops are grown here — it’s about the unlikeliest of ales to have captivated our taste buds.
The improbable history goes thusly: hoppy beer got started in Britain in the 1700s, when brewers started adding extra hops to pales ales exported to colonial India, for hops’ preservative effect. Hence, India pale ale, or IPA, the style that finally caught on in the U.S. in the 1980s, on the West Coast, where most American hops are grown. West Coast brewers innovated a distinctly American style of IPA — piney and grapefruity, not floral and earthy like the English version, but still crystal-clear. It was a Vermont brewer in the ’90s who started messing around with unfiltered IPAs that were hazy and juicier and less bitter than traditional IPAs, but he didn’t get much attention for it until more recently.
That’s where Maine comes in. Right as beer nerds started taking note of hazy IPAs, Bissell Brothers Brewing, of Portland (and now also Milo), opened in 2013 and staked their reputation on a lineup of hazy ales. Now, the Bissells are considered among the OGs and true masters of the New England IPA. Other breweries, like Portland’s Definitive, have followed a similar model. And breweries around the country have hopped on the bandwagon — these days, New England-style IPAs are made in Pittsburgh and Denver and San Diego and just about everywhere else. But it’s Maine, as much as anyplace in New England, that beer pilgrims flock to experience the ale in its native environment. And for those of us who live here, with 130-plus breweries around, the nearest opaque, juicy pour is probably just down the road. — WILL GRUNEWALD
Will Grunewald is a Down East senior editor.
