The haze is more than just for looks, too. It provides a full body with a soft, smooth, almost“ pillowy” mouthfeel. This haze comes from adding high-protein grains like oats and wheat along with yeasts that stay suspended in the beer. These grains have fine protein particles that thicken the beer. Wheat beers like Belgian wit and Hefeweizen have long showcased their haziness to the world and most NEIPAs resemble a wheat beer haze. Lots of brewers and beer drinkers are fine with a gentle haze that catches the light’ s glow. Some brewers however are taking the haze to new levels of turbidity. This is a difficult path to travel and it comes with a lot of risk. It’ s very hard to keep these proteins in suspension. A lot of times the yeast and proteins fall as sediment to the bottom of the bottle, can, or keg leaving the beer clear on the top and a silt at the bottom. Let a beer like that out and customers won’ t be coming back, so the haze needs to hold. It can take some trial and error to get it right so when a brewery gets their haze to stay, they tend to keep their methods to themselves. These mud-like hazies can look and taste like fruit smoothies and the people that make them aren’ t sharing their secrets.
NEIPAs will not last on a shelf. I repeat: they will not last on a shelf! They need to stay refrigerated and consumed quickly. The hop oils that give them their signature juicy flavor are very sensitive to oxygen and light. They start to degrade almost immediately. Peak flavor is in the first 30-45 days and after about three months, they lose almost all of their flavor and aroma. An older hazy IPA will taste dull and muddled, missing that“ zing” people have come to expect. The ones with a higher IBU count tend to taste better as they age but the bitterness does become more pronounced and the beer becomes one-dimensional as the flavors and aromas subside. Ways to avoid this is simple: read the dates on the package! Each package should have either a born-on date or a best-by date. You should be doing this for all of your beers
but definitely check the date on your hazies. These beers don’ t last long and I don’ t trust the stores or the vendors to keep the stock fresh. Only you can prevent stale beer!
They call them New England IPAs because the style came from that part of the country. Julius from Treehouse Brewing in Massachusetts is no joke and is considered the gold standard for the style, but you don’ t need to go all the way there to get some amazing hazy IPAs. We have some great ones right here in Texas! Electric Jellyfish from Pinthouse Brewing in Austin is considered the best NEIPA in the state so that’ s a must have. Tupps in Mckinney, Spindletap in Houston, Celestial Beerworks in Dallas, and Turning Point in Fort Worth are all brewing great juicy hazies that’ ll knock your socks off!
Heady Topper is still being brewed at the Alchemist and hasn’ t changed a bit. I think back on that first can of Heady often. I was so taken aback by it that I think the customer who bought it for me thought I didn’ t like it. On the contrary it was such a memorable experience that I’ m writing about it now over ten years later. I’ ve been lucky enough to have had several of them come my way even though it’ s not sold here. It was the original hazy and drinking it now shows how the style changed as it modernized. Heady has more bitterness at 75 IBUs than the more modern versions which clock in at between 30 and 50 IBUs. It’ s also less hazy as well: Heady still lets some light through while Julius is almost completely opaque. Understandable when you take into account that The Alchemist wasn’ t trying to make Heady Topper hazy, they were just trying to make it good. Really, really good.
Chris Keller has worked in beer sales for a distributor, as a brewer for Saint Arnold Brewing Co. in Houston, and is the owner of Pint and Barrel Drafthouse in Palestine, Texas.
28 SPRING EDITION 2026