Hazy IPA Recipe & A Few Tips To Get Hazy IPA's Right (2024)

Recently, I have been more and more intrigued by the techniques around brewing hazy and often downright murky New England IPAs. People can’t seem to get enough of them and it would seem people often associate the murk levels in these hazy IPAs with mouth-filling juicy hop character.

I have to say I am a big fan of hazy IPAs and find the whole wave of enthusiasm about the style really exciting. I have brewed a few interpretations myself and done a bit tinkering and found the hoppiness isn’t directly correlated with murkiness, although it does have some effect. I have even seen some brewers are deliberately increasing the haze with methods that aren’t so traditional (more on that in a bit).

Key Variables for Brewing A Hazy IPA

From my experience brewing, these hazy NEIPAs uses a mix of both technique, ingredients and basic adjustments to things like water. The most important things to get right in this style of beer are:

• Huge, juicy, tropical and fruity hop aroma.
• Low bitterness.
• Full and silky mouthfeel.

The key to achieving a Hazy IPA that encapsulates these traits isn’t necessarily about making a murky beer but the haziness is a byproduct.

Hazy IPA Techniques

A few subtle changes in the way you brew an IPA can have dramatic differences in the finished beer, these changes are what keeps the beer hazy and introduces the luscious juiciness of the hop character.

Timing The Dry Hop

It goes without saying that you are going to want to have a heavy hand with the dry hops that go into the fermenter. It is also important to think about when you are adding the dry hop.

Conventionally, you would always what for the primary fermentation to subside before adding dry hops. Brewing NEIPA’s, however, you will want to add your dry hops during active fermentation. I find about 1 – 2 days after pitching yeast is a good time to dry hop for a Hazy IPA.

Dry hopping during active fermentation takes advantage of a process called biotransformation. What this means is that the yeast fermenting the beer transform compounds in hop to slightly different compounds. This in part helps to draw out those intensely fruity and juicy aromas and flavours we want.

After this initial dry hop, I like to dry hop again either in the keg or a few days before bottling to really bolster the aroma.

Focus On Aroma Hops Not Bittering

We want to keep the bitterness levels on the low side. This helps to push full, aromatic qualities of the IPA and keep them front and centre. This means adding the vast majority of the hops at the end of the boil.

There may be no 60 minute hop addition at all. I have had success with hopping 30 minutes into a 60 minute boil and also in the last 15 minutes. This allows for large amounts of hops at flameout or at the end of the boil without pushing too much bitterness.

Body Boosting Grains & Adjuncts

The addition of oats, flaked wheat or barley and other high protein grains and adjuncts is common. These types of grains boost the mouthfeel and body of the beer and also provide a silkiness. This is very typical of the style and these types of grains are found in nearly every example of the style.

These grains also contribute to the haze that is one of the key features of the style.

High Chloride Water

The balance between sulphates and chloride in traditional IPAs and Pale Ales favours the sulphates. Brewing water with high sulphates accentuates the hop bitterness and provides a crispness that is required for traditional hoppy beers. Water that is higher in chloride compared to sulphate at around a 2:1 ratio will enhance the roundness of the malt character and provide a sweeter, fuller bodied beer.

In hazy IPAs and NEIPA we want to minimise bitterness as much as possible and focus purely on aroma and mouthfeel. Water high in sulphates enhances bitterness so you will want to think about this when preparing your brewing water.

Absolutely Minimise Oxygen Exposure

I have brewed NEIPA and packaged in both keg and bottle. By far the best results were the hazy IPAs packaged in keg compared to bottling. Hazy IPAs are very prone to oxidisation which introduces off flavours, mutes aroma hops and in this case, causes discolouration in the beer.

In fact, the bottled versions of these beers completely changed after around 3 to 4 weeks. The colour of the beer went from bright yellow to a darker gold colour. I have seen some home brewers turn muddy brown in the bottle. This appears to be down to oxidation in the bottle or rather caused by the bottling process that is very hard to eliminate at a home brew scale.

Kegging the beer on the other hands is a great way to package and eliminate almost all the oxygen that will oxidise the beer. The kegs can be purged with CO2 and very little beer is exposed to the air when you are kegging compared to bottling.

El Dorado, Citra & Mosaic Hazy IPA Recipe