Five Blades Brewing

F' Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

Recent Posts

  • Charlie is My Homeboy
  • Happy Repeal Day!
  • Ceci n’est pas une bière
  • Derek for AHA Governing Committee
  • Quaffing a Better Engineered Beer
  • Home
  • Recipes
  • BeerXML for WordPress
  • About

Totes McOats – New England Pale Ale

June 26, 2016 by Derek Springer 35 Comments

Check out the rest of my recipes in the index.
Totes McOats wide shot
So hot right nowI challenge you to find a topic more contentious than haze in beer. Minus the odd, typically wheat-based style, the general mandate for clarity is the clearer the better–crystal is best. Well, for one reason or another our friends over in New England have decided to buck the trend: instead of crisp, dry, crystal clear megadank hop bombs the New Englanders have opted to follow a whatever-it-takes mentality to squeeze maximum “juiciness” out of their hops and yeast. As the result of their methods, the beers have a distinct haze/turbidity to them (“hazy af“) proponents claim enhances mouthfeel and the fruity-juicy character of the high ester yeast and New World hops.

While I am personally a fan of clear beer–you drink with your eyes, etc–I do not have a problem, per se, with folks developing/enjoying their own regional interpretations of a style. By and large I wager most folks feel the same and us West Coast folks were content to enjoy our thing and let the folks in New England do their thing… until homebrewer king Jamil Zainasheff fired off the “Tweet Heard ‘Round the World” and everyone lost their friggin’ minds.

I'm sorry, you who think this is acceptable beer have lost your minds. This overly yeasty crap is offensive. pic.twitter.com/TTTrT3nbhi

— Jamil Zainasheff (@mrmalty) March 2, 2016

If you follow the thread further it turns out he was merely upset about paying $9 for a beer that has poor fermentation character, but it was already too late: the New Englanders had already grabbed their pitchforks to defend their precious haze and the West Coasters had lined up to join in on the dump-fest. Now you have to have an opinion and the other side is wrong! Oi! (Also, Jamil needs to learn to properly orient his photos)

Here is the sad truth of the matter: many West Coast folks likely have not sampled a good representation of the NE style, it simply does not get made/distributed out here; my own experience was limited to a handful of sips from smuggled cans at bottle shares. Meanwhile, New Englanders have been living under West Coast beer imperialism for the last decade or so, maybe they do know better. Not one to get too tangled up in brewing dogma, I decided to see what the hubbub was all about and brew a New England Pale Ale myself. At the urging of noted oat enthusiast Scott Janish I decided this would also be a good time to experiment with his recommendation of > 18% oats in the grist. It’s so juicy!

The new East Coast/West Coast rivalry.

Step aside Biggie, this is the new East Coast/West Coast rivalry.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: hazy af, oats, pale ale, recipe

This Guy

Derek Springer

Derek Springer

I write code & brew beer--if you ask nice I'll share some with you :)

View Full Profile →

Top Posts & Pages

  • Lactobacillus Starter Guide
    Lactobacillus Starter Guide
  • Toasting Oats Guide
    Toasting Oats Guide
  • Intro to Sour Mashing
    Intro to Sour Mashing
  • Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and Its Applications
    Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and Its Applications
  • Geburtstagsparty - "Traditional" Vienna
    Geburtstagsparty - "Traditional" Vienna
My Tweets

Recommended Blogs

  • A Ph.D in Beer
    History of Fermentation – How do we know what ancient people drank?
  • Accidentalis Brewing
    Improving BJCP Tasting Exam Scores – REDUX
  • Ales of the Riverwards
  • BrewUnited
    2017 NHC Recap, Or, My Friends Are More Awesome Than Yours
  • Brülosophy
    exBEERiment | Impact Post-Fermentation Contact Time With Coffee Beans Has On An American Blonde Ale
  • HummingBrew
  • In Bounds Brewing

Search

Categories

Archives

Subscribe via Email

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Menu

  • Home
  • Recipes
  • BeerXML for WordPress
  • About
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Affiliate Disclosure

Five Blades Brewing participates in affiliate programs designed to provide compensation for linking to products. Compensation for product reviews will be in the form of the product itself and will be noted within the article.

Five Blades Brewing will not accept payment to complete a review.

Feeds

RSS feed RSS - Posts

RSS feed RSS - Comments

Copyright © 2023 · Five Blades Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...