Beer Review: Haze (Tree House Brewing Company)
(Editorial Note: This article first appeared on the blog LetUsDrinkBeer.blog where I contribute as a writer. They are a Georgia based beer blog. I have written a few articles for them, this one included. You can read the original copy on their blog here: Let Us Drink Beer – Beer Review: Haze. It was published on January 18th, 2020. I have left this article fully intact, outside of providing a few links, this editorial note, and correcting a spelling mistake.)
First off, let me first say – sorry – that its been a while. We, The Beer Thrillers, have been quite busy lately. We did a brewery tour and visit of Mellow Mink Brewing Co., and have been working on a big article for them, so that’s taken most of our time. (I will be posting it here as well to get as many people to be able to see it.) But, I did want to get a new beer review up for you guys down south, and decided what better beer to do – than the one I had on New Years Eve night (technically Day by that point).
Tree House Brewing has a cache name value to it by this point. Even though they don’t distribute, and even though they are far north, they are still known America-wide and even internationally. They are regularly touted as one of the Top 10 craft breweries in America, and widely considered one of the best .
I had the lucky opportunity to get a couple of these great beers brought down for me from a friend who was up north visiting who stopped in at the brewery. I have already reviewed on my blog – Sap and Autumn, and will soon be reviewing Julius and Doppelganger as well. So please be sure to check those out, I think you’ll enjoy those reviews if you enjoy this one.
So let’s jump into this tasty beer, and believe me, its certainly tasty!
Beer: Haze
Brewery: Tree House Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: 90
Untappd Write-Up: Our Double IPA! We smell a ton of peach on the nose, with complimentary notes of orange and passionfruit. The flavor is similar with a blast of citrus fruit & peach quickly followed by a bounty of tropical fruit. A lingering and pleasant saturated hop oil finish awaits. . . . A real juice bomb of a beer!
Now there’s a key thing to remember about Tree House and this beer in particular… these were created and crafted before there was a thing called “New England IPA”…. this is the forerunner, essentially the child of New England IPAs. The spirit animal of NE-IPAs, the progeny, etc, etc.
So you could consider these NE-IPAs but they won’t be listed as that. Tree House, Trillium, and others up north created the style, the rest of the world ran havoc with it.
Breaking this down, lets start with the color. Its a golden hue. Like very bright orange juice. There’s a good head to it with great retention and it leaves wonderful lacing on the glass. Its unfiltered, and to invoke its namesake its certainly hazy.
Smell is delicious hop aroma through and through. Upfront very peach hop forward followed by all the tropical fruity hop notes you expect from this. This is an explosion of aroma as soon as the can is cracked, filling the room with its hop presence.
By this point, after pouring it, seeing it, smelling it, its time to taste it before you drool too much. This is just one fantastic beer. Well crafted, tasty, delicious, mouth watering good, and so simple to drink. This is a very easy drinkable beer, that if your not careful you’re finishing in no time. And at the 8.2% ABV it’ll hit you. This is typical for NE-IPAs, very smooth, very crushable (despite ABV), juicy, filled with fruity hop notes that play across your tongue. The surprising and unique thing to this one, as opposed to Julius, or Sap, or Doppelganger, is there’s a bitterness at the end. After all the juicyness, the fruity hop-ness, there’s an underlying hop bitterness, to let you remember that “oh yea, I’m drinking an IPA”. And it works so beautifully and perfectly.
My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.4.9 (as of 1.14.20)
Sorry for the delay in reviews, but with the new year came a lot of new things, and life’s been hectic, not just for the blog, but for myself. Doing podcasts – which we just wrapped up LOST Seasons 1 and 2 and The Mandalorian & Rise of Skywalker.
As always, please be sure to check out our Facebook page – The Beer Thrillers on Facebook – and our Twitter page – The Beer Thrillers on Twitter. Make sure to follow and like us.
Also, please be sure to check out our blog and click the follow, subscribe, and all of that good stuff. Plenty of great articles coming out soon! As always, cheers everyone!
-B. Kline
