Beer of the Week 07/08/24

Vanish Ghost Fleet

Normally $19.99 / Now on Sale for $18.96 (16oz can four-pack)
Hazy IPA

Vanish Farmwoods Brewery in Lucketts, VA started back in 2014, but before that Jonathan Staples started Black Hops Farm — a hop farm for Virginia’s then growing beer scene. Today, using ingredients from both their farm and from other local farms, Vanish Farmwoods Brewery focuses on “plant-to-pint” or “seed-to-sip” brewing.

They say that their Ghost Fleet IPA is “modeled in classic New England form,” which just confirms for us that we’ve adopted a stricter definition for the NEIPA than even some brewers have.

You see, Vanish builds this unfiltered IPA with a mostly dry malt backbone to which they apply Amarillo and “dank” Simcoe hops. Now, for us, the NEIPA is about juiciness coming from some level of tropical fruit notes, which are hard to get from good old-fashioned, Yakima born, Amarillo and Simcoe. What you get is what we taste — a lovely hazy, citrusy IPA that suggests grapefruit and/or tangerine. The hint of sweetness in the malt recalls dried apricots or the sour edge of light molasses. Nicely done, delicious, just not juicy.

So, should we loosen our definition of New England style? Inconceivable! No, everyone else just keeps saying those words, but we don’t think they mean what they think they mean.