One Iconic Beer: Heady Topper
Once this podcast develops the robust following I know it’s destined for, I’ll quit hyping it on the blog. But we’re not there yet!—so you get another teaser as the latest episode has just dropped. Today’s episode is on Heady Topper, which you can listen to here or at any of the finer podcast-streaming services. Here’s the intro, but scroll down and I’ll add a bit more, too.
If you stop into most breweries and nearly any bar or restaurant in New England today, you’re going to see an IPA on the menu, and it will almost certainly be hazy. New England has one of the most distinctive beer cultures in the US. It wasn’t always like this, however. In fact, until about fifteen years ago, most New Englanders had never really encountered a hop.
The Alchemist’s Heady Topper, the subject of this episode of One Iconic Beer. John and Jen Kimmich started The Alchemist in 2003 and within months was making a beer that many people credit as the first hazy New England IPA. It’s a funny thing about firsts, though. As you’ll hear in the interview, John Kimmich is uneasy with this description. Heady Topper may have sparked a region-wide culture shift, but it doesn’t really resemble the beers that follow.
In addition to Kimmich, this episode features Jason Alström, one of the co-founders of BeerAdvocate. In the early days of the internet, the site became a nexus of discussion and organization and helped create the excitement that led to, among other things, the haze craze that would engulf New England. You’ll also hear from Andy Crouch, publisher of All About Beer magazine, and a writer who has covered the New England beer scene since moving there in the early 2000s.
I come into these podcasts with a sense of the story I want to tell, one inevitably modified by what the interview subjects tell me. I am drawn to the story of Heady Topper because of its reputation as the first, and many would still say best, hazy IPA—and the fact that it isn’t a representative example of the style any more. This is often true of beers that create the nucleus of a style, but it usually takes many decades for the style to drift from the original. In the case of Heady Topper, the timeline was a lot shorter.
In this interview, I learned a really important piece of puzzle that connects Heady to this lineage, and it’s one I haven’t heard discussed that much: The Alchemist’s early use of four-packs of 16 ounce cans. That became the emblem of the style, and it dates to a natural disaster way back in 2011. Fascinating how totally random things can have such a massive influence on history.
Finally, if you require further inducements to listen, this is pretty good: Alchemist co-founder John Kimmich discusses what he thinks of today’s hazies in the episode, and it’s spicy. So give it a listen.