Juice Cloud

Last week, Lion’s Tail Brewing in Neenah released Juice Cloud, a New England Style IPA (NE IPA). It’s the first time a commercial brewery in Winnebago County has produced this style.

This is a golden, densely cloudy beer under creamy white foam. It’s powerfully aromatic. You can smell hops before your nose gets near it. The aroma is a swirl of sweet citrus fruits with grapefruit and some onion coming in at the back end. The flavor of Citra hops drives this beer. Clearly, there’s a lot of it in the dry hopping. I couldn’t help but think of orange juice when I was drinking it.

This is a beer that upends your expectations. The mouthfeel is soft and creamy, but with so much hop flavor you anticipate a punch of bitterness will follow. It never arrives. For a beer that appears anything but clean, it finishes exceptionally clean. What bitterness there is rapidly dissipates. People who aren't much into IPA might like this quite a bit. If you’re already into hops, Juice Cloud is a must. It’s one of the best examples of an NE IPA, I've had. Hands down the best version I’ve tried from a Wisconsin brewery.

Until now, the NE IPA has barely made a dent around here. But the style has been around for a while. Some trace it back to 2003. That’s when The Alchemist, a Vermont brewery, first brewed Heady Topper; arguably the first iteration of the style. It's developed over time. In the past three years, the style has gone from an obscure novelty to the most talked about American craft beer.

It’s also proven to be controversial. Much has been made of the extreme haze. Some find it off-putting. Others take it as a signifier of raw hop flavor. Others yet would say it’s just an unfiltered IPA. I don’t buy that. These beers are made in a way that sets them apart.

Alex Wenzel is the brewmaster and owner of Lion’s Tail Brewing. He dug deep before releasing his take on the NE IPA.

Alex Wenzel of Lion's Tail Brewing

After several trials, Wenzel found he could produce the flavors, texture, and appearance he wanted. He uses a combination of water adjustment, grist, yeast and dry hopping. Juice Cloud employs a fairly standard malt bill supplemented with starchy adjuncts – flaked oats and wheat. But Wenzel believes the haze has more to do with the hopping regimen.

“The trick to achieving sustainable haze is introducing a sizable charge of hops during active fermentation,” Wenzel says. “The so-called biotransformation is a reaction the yeast have to the hop oils during fermentation, it ruins their ability to flocculate and drop out of solution to dormancy. I did do quite a bit of experimenting with a centrifuge and found that this biotransformation thing is pretty legit. Even when you add bio fining or anionic chemistry like carrageenan, there's still a good portion of the haze that will not drop out of solution.”

It’s not just about haze, though. Juice Cloud’s low bitterness (15 calculated IBUs) is another point of deviation from conventionally hoppy beers. Because nearly all the hops are introduced on the cold side – during and after fermentation – little bitterness is produced. But hop flavor is still captured. At 6.3% ABV, Juice Cloud retains the strength of the modern IPA, but the gentle bitterness makes for a beer that’s easier drinking than the West Coast style IPAs that have been dominant in recent years.

Wenzel is still tinkering with the recipe, but appears happy with what he’s come up with. He should be. Juice Cloud recently did well at the inaugural Wisconsin IPA Fest in Milwaukee. It won the award for being the first keg to kick.

Right now you can get Juice Cloud at the Lion’s Tail taproom in Neenah. And in Oshkosh, it’s currently on the tap lists at Ruby Owl Taproom and Bare Bones Brewery.