This brings out tons of flavor and allows you to really show the hops flavor in the finished product.”Īt Trillium Brewing Company, Jean-Claude Tetreault (brewmaster and owner) draws inspiration from such breweries as Jolly Pumpkin in Michigan, Allagash Brewing Company in Maine, and Cantillion in Belgium. Brewers today use techniques, including hop bursting, where you add hops late in the boil and even in the whirlpool. “The hops are the predominant flavor, and the malt really plays a supporting role. “I try to let the hops shine through,” continues Lawson. “Now you have all these New Zealand hops and hops such as Mosaic and Equinox. “It used to be all the classic ‘C’ hops, such as Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus,” says Lawson, brewer of the popular IPA, Sip of Sunshine, and the double IPA, Double Sunshine. Now, we don’t even care about IBUs.”Īnother difference is the number of hops available, says Sean Lawson, owner of Lawson’s Finest Liquids, a small-batch brewery based in Warren, Vermont. Years ago, the bittering additions were what it was all about-they were getting 100 IBUs from the first addition. In Substance, the first bittering addition is 1/30th the size of the hops addition after we turn off the heat on the kettle. I think a lot of brewers are making beers that are similar and have lots and lots of late hops and lots of dry hopping. “Now, it’s more about the myriad of flavors. ![]() “Five or six years ago, it was all about the bitterness: ‘How tough are you? Can you handle this?’” says Bissell. That method, Bissell says, significantly cuts down on bitterness while bringing out the natural flavor of the hops. Now, when he brews his beers, such as the popular Substance, he adds the hops late in the brewing process, and there is additional dry hopping. Noah Bissell, co-owner and brewmaster at Bissell Brothers in Portland, Maine, says the old school of brewing IPAs was to add hops at different points during the boil. My palate has always steered me to the cleaner, brighter, later fresh hops character, as opposed to long hops additions throughout the boil,” he says. I taste many beers that were at one time great and now are not.”Īlthough Kimmich won’t go into details about his brewing process, he says he doesn’t think he’s “doing anything wildly different from other breweries. That is something that is underestimated today. That’s a testament to the incredible amount of detail on my part and my team’s part. “If you have had it and you come back to it, it’s just as good as it was. “The reason Heady Topper is so popular and continues to be popular is it lives up to expectations,” says Kimmich. The beer is so popular that he had to close the brewery’s retail shop because so many people were coming to buy the beer that neighbors complained. He opened his canning brewery in 2011 and now brews 180 barrels of Heady Topper a week. ![]() Kimmich began brewing Heady Topper in 2004 at the former Alchemist brewpub. John Kimmich, owner/brewer of The Alchemist in Waterbury, Vermont, says it was those early beers and his early brewing experience at the landmark Vermont Pub & Brewery in Burlington that helped guide him to his beers today (and provided his yeast, Conan-see “Gather No Moss”). “You could kind of see the snowball rolling down the hill and becoming more prominent. “Back in the 1990s, Harpoon IPA was the standard beer, and there were beers like Wachusett purple and Redhook’s Ballard’s Bitter, but there weren’t many IPAs that were flagships or year rounds,” said Ben Roesch, brewmaster at Worcester, Massachusetts’s Wormtown Brewery, known for IPAs such as Be Hoppy and Hopulence. India pale ales and their bigger brothers rule supreme in world of New England breweries, with breweries such as The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, and Lawson’s Finest Liquids in Vermont Trillium Brewing Company and Tree House Brewing Company in Massachusetts and Bissell Brothers in Maine being responsible for some of the most sought-after beers in the country. Compared to today, the Harpoon IPA is like a pale ale.” “Nowadays, people expect it to be hops-forward and not too bitter. “I think people’s palates have changed,” says Mott, the veteran brewer who now owns and operates Tributary Brewing Company in Kittery, Maine. Harpoon IPA is still a popular beer, but IPAs in New England have changed significantly in the twenty-plus years since Mott first poured the hops into the boil. It was clear and balanced, and-for its time-it was an aggressively hopped beer. Tod Mott brewed the first IPA in New England in 1993 for the Harpoon Brewery (Boston, Massachusetts, and Windsor, Vermont).
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