8 ms·

The story of Heady Topper, Americas most loved craft beer

51 points by Dangeranger 10y ago

SirFatty 10y ago
who? what?
- NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  Never heard of this on the west coast. You mean there is beer made east of the beerocracy states of Washington & Oregon? At least the hops must come from here, right :-) I wish it was available around here, but the legally required liquor industry beer industry middlemen have too much power in what gets imported. In the Seattle area there are dozens of brewerys in the city, plus zillions in surrounding areas. There are so many it's virtually impossible to have visited all of them, much less heard of them.
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Ohhhh man. You have no idea what you're missing out on. There is great beer all across the US. We get some beers from Washington and Oregon and California (Rouge and Stone come to mind immediately), but there are a ton of beers from the East Coast and the Great Lakes that are beyond fantastic. Check em out sometime!
  - irongeek 10y ago
    The northeast is a beer mecca. You have great beer on the west coast but there is beer just as good if not better here. A lot of hop farms are in Pennsylvania and the New England states now.
  - beat 10y ago
    Many states have great local beers these days. Here in the Twin Cities metro, we have some world-class beers that are as good as anything I've had... Surly Furious, Lift Bridge Farm Girl, Indeed LSD, Sidhe Greenman's Harvest, and the late great Harriet Divine Oculist (Harriet recently closed, sigh). Whenever I'm traveling, I go out of my way to try the local beers, relying on recommendations from bartenders and local friends. It's always a great experience. Some years ago, I was at a conference in San Francisco, attended by numerous Europeans. The vendor poured a lot of Anchor Steam beer into us. Some of the Europeans were shocked at how good it was. The only American beers they'd ever had were Bud and Miller Lite, and they thought American beer was awful, until they tried Anchor. I kept telling them we keep the best stuff for ourselves. In practice, that's true even of individual states.
  - TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
    If you like beer, New England is worth a tour. http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/01/22/new-england-craft-breweries-map-of-every-massachusetts-brewery/ http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/01/22/new-england-craft-b...
- stumblers 10y ago
  huge caveat: I haven't read the piece yet, but had to quickly respond to you. This is probably totally inside baseball for beer snobs. For me, Heady Topper is the beer that made me a beer snob. Never understood why anyone would ever stand in line to buy beer but sadly now I do. The most interesting aspect of their story is that it seems to somewhat defy market gravity...they keep their prices pretty steady (very expensive), supply is limited, and demand keeps growing. I'm no historian or expert but I think they've been a market creator in this style of recipe (Lawsons, Hill Farmstead, Trillium, Fiddlehead, etc). That might be wildly inaccurate, so take it for what it's worth. Again, haven't the read the piece but had to respond.
- defen 10y ago
  Think Pliny the Younger, but earlier in the hype cycle.
  - beat 10y ago
    If it's as good as Pliny, I might go out of my way to get some!
    - defen 10y ago
      Couple notes: 1) I don't know where you are, but it's best drunk fresh - I wouldn't recommend paying or trading a lot to get some if you're far away and can't be sure of the provenance (e.g. a month old can that has been improperly refrigerated is not going to be good) 2) It's "like" Pliny in that they are both hoppy double or triple IPAs but still different - Heady isn't filtered, so it doesn't have as clean of a mouthfeel (not necessarily good or bad; just different). You get a bit more of a piney vibe as well as more tropical fruit with Heady in my opinion.
      - beat 10y ago
        The only time I've had it was flown in for a party. It was really lovely, though.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Sounds like the writer liked their beer a little too much to make a balanced piece. It is my understanding that from coast-to-coast, America's most beloved craft brewery is Dogfish Head, and that the most popular craft brewery (by sales volume) is Sam Adams. I have never heard of Heady Topper, and I used to drink like a fish.
- vermontdevil 10y ago
  Then you need to go up to Vermont and give it a try. Plus Waterbury is a beautiful town to visit as well.
  - digitalsushi 10y ago
    It is astonishing how different the middle of Vermont is compared to the middle of New Hampshire. I grew up, and live, in New Hampshire, but took my first drive through to NY only a few short months ago, in late October, and now regret the delay. What a beautiful part of the country, I recommend it to anyone with a sense of aesthetics.
  - scoates 10y ago
    FWIW, I recently wrote up my Vermont hit list: https://seancoates.com/blogs/vermont/ https://seancoates.com/blogs/vermont/ Need to make a trip down there as soon as possible. I'm getting thirsty.
- eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  Heady Topper isn't sold outside of Vermont, so that is perhaps why you haven't. I was able to purchase one when visiting there after learning the beer has a score of 100 on beeradvocate.com [1] 'Most loved' probably isn't the right wording :) 'Highest rated' probably would be better. [1] https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/
  - cnnsucks 10y ago
    >> Heady Topper isn't sold outside of Vermont And yet it's "America's most loved"... Never heard of it myself. Beer hype. I've no doubt someone's gone off the deep end to get their hands on some; people do a lot of stupid things on behalf of the cliques they aspire to. There just seems to be a lot of this when it involves crafty beer stuff.
joezydeco 10y ago
I've tried a Heddy Topper (it was offered to me in a restaurant in Burlington), I live near Goose Island, and I've consumed New Glarus in Wisconsin. To me it's all about the scarcity. People waiting overnight for limited-edition brews, crossing state lines to buy exclusive brands...it adds this psychological value to the beer. When you strip that away you're left with another 100+ IBU beer that my palate eventually can't take anymore.
- whistlerbrk 10y ago
  Yeah, the obsession in America over IPAs really needs to end. I'm sure this is a good brew, but the vast majority of them seem to me to be an exercise in absurdity. Too high ABV and so bitter you can't taste the fact that most of these beers have nothing else to offer in terms of body or flavor. I liken it to Starbucks drip, you like it because in order to make it palatable you have to dump sugar and cream into it.
  - jhbadger 10y ago
    I think it is more like getting used to spice. In the 1980s it used to be often repeated in the US that Mexican, Thai, and Indian food was ridiculously spiced and that there was no flavor except peppers and that the only reason to eat these dishes was to prove that you could take it. But eventually a lot of even US people developed palettes used to spice and could appreciate that there is a reason these dishes have a lot of spice. It's the same with hops.
    - beat 10y ago
      Meh. There's a difference between a complex flavor that happens to be spicy, and a mere heat bomb. Take a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich, for example. That's a heat bomb. It's awful, but it's very spicy. Meanwhile, two of my favorite Indian restaurants in town (well, one Indian, and one Trinidad) can serve most of their dishes with zero peppers - no heat, just flavor. Peppers can be added all the way up to gut-melting levels, of course. Beer is the same way. Complexity and bitterness are two different things, and you don't need a ton of bitterness to get the complexity.
wspeirs 10y ago
3 Floyd's Alpha King[1]... best IPA/Pale Ale ever. Let the flame war begin!!! [1] https://www.3floyds.com/beer/alpha-king/?age_verification=e748750b71 https://www.3floyds.com/beer/alpha-king/?age_verification=e7...
- SippinLean 10y ago
  practically an entirely different style in craft beer terms
- DisposableMike 10y ago
  I love Alpha King (and it's from my home state), but it's an American Pale Ale. Not the same as an (IPA) India Pale Ale, and certainly not the same as a double IPA.
defen 10y ago
If you like cheese and / or beer you owe to yourself to make a trip to Vermont and visit Waterbury and / or Burlington. Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, Lawson's Finest Liquids, Jasper Hill Farm, etc
- dugmartin 10y ago
  And then dip down into Western Mass - lots of good beers here too even for non-IPA lovers like myself. If you want to try something a little different grab some Ginger Libation.
jrlocke 10y ago
Heady Topper is a great beer, but make no mistake, the astronomical esteem for it stems not from its merits, but from its status as the progenitor of New England style (cloudy) IPAs.
- SippinLean 10y ago
  False dichotomy, it really is just a great beer as well. To your credit when it first hit the scene it stood out a lot more than it does now (there are three craft breweries in my area that release cans of NE-style IPA every month).
  - jrlocke 10y ago
    I agree that it's great, but being 8th on Beer Advocate (4th amongst hoppy beers) is to me too high.
    - TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
      I think it deserves it.
      - SippinLean 10y ago
        to the parent's credit there's just so much competition now that didn't exist when Heady rose to prominence (Other Half, Tree House, Veil, Trillium, Monkish, LICBP etc) that maybe it's time to share the spotlight
baccredited 10y ago
Agree that Heady Topper is the best. Love Pliny the Elder and Zombie Dust (which are almost as hard to get where I live) but Heady stands alone for me. My favorite widely available IPA is Jai Alai. What is yours?
- timmaah 10y ago
  Spending the winter in south south Florida. The Jai Alai is good. Better than any of the other Florida IPA's I have come across.
- defen 10y ago
  I'm not sure how widely distributed it is, but if you're in Oregon, Breakside Flagship IPA is easy to find year round and quite good.
danbruc 10y ago
An American craft brewery is a small, independent, and traditional brewery where small means a production of less than 6 million [US beer] barrels per year. [1] A US beer barrel seems to be 177.348 liters so that we get slightly more than 7 million hectoliters. The largest German brewery produced 5.5 million hectoliters in 2002. [2] So US small is German largest plus 25%? Or did I make a mistake, is there yet another barrel? In Germany you are considered a large brewery above 0.25 million hectoliters or 140,965 barrels. Also the world beer production seems to be just shy of 2 billion hectoliters per year, so you can produce 0.35% of the world production and are still considered small? That would also limit the number of non-small breweries to 286. [1] https://www.craftbeer.com/breweries/what-is-a-craft-brewery https://www.craftbeer.com/breweries/what-is-a-craft-brewery [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großbrauerei#Gr.C3.B6.C3.9Fte_Brauereien_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großbrauerei#Gr.C3.B6.C3.9Fte_...
- daviross 10y ago
  Most of the issue there is that, due to tradition, the official definition keeps getting bumped up so Samuel Adams counts. (Most recently from 2 million to 6 million barrels) More practically, I'd say to look at microbrewery limits, which are 15,000 barrels/year.
Dangeranger 10y ago
What I found most compelling about the story wasn't the hype for Heady Topper, but the attitudes of the owners John and Jen Kimmich. They took a disaster and made the most out of it, and are now able to provide for 48 full time employees. While the beer is great, their story of perseverance over adversity is what really matters here.
bobochan 10y ago
I live in Vermont and love the new brewery and Heady Topper, but OH MY GOODNESS their stout, Beezlebub, is The Chosen One. It is the perfect libation, absolutely without flaw. The brewery is over an hour a way and I will happily jump in the car in a moments notice just to fill my trunk with that delicious nectar. The sales lines at the new brewery work incredibly efficiently and it was staggering to see how much money, mostly in cash, was being handed over every 20 seconds as the line moved forward. These folks are geniuses and I am happy to reward them.

51 points by Dangeranger 10y ago

SirFatty 10y ago

who? what?

NotSammyHagar 10y ago
Never heard of this on the west coast. You mean there is beer made east of the beerocracy states of Washington & Oregon? At least the hops must come from here, right :-) I wish it was available around here, but the legally required liquor industry beer industry middlemen have too much power in what gets imported. In the Seattle area there are dozens of brewerys in the city, plus zillions in surrounding areas. There are so many it's virtually impossible to have visited all of them, much less heard of them.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Ohhhh man. You have no idea what you're missing out on. There is great beer all across the US. We get some beers from Washington and Oregon and California (Rouge and Stone come to mind immediately), but there are a ton of beers from the East Coast and the Great Lakes that are beyond fantastic. Check em out sometime!
- irongeek 10y ago
  The northeast is a beer mecca. You have great beer on the west coast but there is beer just as good if not better here. A lot of hop farms are in Pennsylvania and the New England states now.
- beat 10y ago
  Many states have great local beers these days. Here in the Twin Cities metro, we have some world-class beers that are as good as anything I've had... Surly Furious, Lift Bridge Farm Girl, Indeed LSD, Sidhe Greenman's Harvest, and the late great Harriet Divine Oculist (Harriet recently closed, sigh). Whenever I'm traveling, I go out of my way to try the local beers, relying on recommendations from bartenders and local friends. It's always a great experience. Some years ago, I was at a conference in San Francisco, attended by numerous Europeans. The vendor poured a lot of Anchor Steam beer into us. Some of the Europeans were shocked at how good it was. The only American beers they'd ever had were Bud and Miller Lite, and they thought American beer was awful, until they tried Anchor. I kept telling them we keep the best stuff for ourselves. In practice, that's true even of individual states.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
  If you like beer, New England is worth a tour. http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/01/22/new-england-craft-breweries-map-of-every-massachusetts-brewery/ http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/01/22/new-england-craft-b...
stumblers 10y ago
huge caveat: I haven't read the piece yet, but had to quickly respond to you. This is probably totally inside baseball for beer snobs. For me, Heady Topper is the beer that made me a beer snob. Never understood why anyone would ever stand in line to buy beer but sadly now I do. The most interesting aspect of their story is that it seems to somewhat defy market gravity...they keep their prices pretty steady (very expensive), supply is limited, and demand keeps growing. I'm no historian or expert but I think they've been a market creator in this style of recipe (Lawsons, Hill Farmstead, Trillium, Fiddlehead, etc). That might be wildly inaccurate, so take it for what it's worth. Again, haven't the read the piece but had to respond.
defen 10y ago
Think Pliny the Younger, but earlier in the hype cycle.
- beat 10y ago
  If it's as good as Pliny, I might go out of my way to get some!
  - defen 10y ago
    Couple notes: 1) I don't know where you are, but it's best drunk fresh - I wouldn't recommend paying or trading a lot to get some if you're far away and can't be sure of the provenance (e.g. a month old can that has been improperly refrigerated is not going to be good) 2) It's "like" Pliny in that they are both hoppy double or triple IPAs but still different - Heady isn't filtered, so it doesn't have as clean of a mouthfeel (not necessarily good or bad; just different). You get a bit more of a piney vibe as well as more tropical fruit with Heady in my opinion.
    - beat 10y ago
      The only time I've had it was flown in for a party. It was really lovely, though.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

Sounds like the writer liked their beer a little too much to make a balanced piece. It is my understanding that from coast-to-coast, America's most beloved craft brewery is Dogfish Head, and that the most popular craft brewery (by sales volume) is Sam Adams. I have never heard of Heady Topper, and I used to drink like a fish.

vermontdevil 10y ago
Then you need to go up to Vermont and give it a try. Plus Waterbury is a beautiful town to visit as well.
- digitalsushi 10y ago
  It is astonishing how different the middle of Vermont is compared to the middle of New Hampshire. I grew up, and live, in New Hampshire, but took my first drive through to NY only a few short months ago, in late October, and now regret the delay. What a beautiful part of the country, I recommend it to anyone with a sense of aesthetics.
- scoates 10y ago
  FWIW, I recently wrote up my Vermont hit list: https://seancoates.com/blogs/vermont/ https://seancoates.com/blogs/vermont/ Need to make a trip down there as soon as possible. I'm getting thirsty.
eatbitseveryday 10y ago
Heady Topper isn't sold outside of Vermont, so that is perhaps why you haven't. I was able to purchase one when visiting there after learning the beer has a score of 100 on beeradvocate.com [1] 'Most loved' probably isn't the right wording :) 'Highest rated' probably would be better. [1] https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/
- cnnsucks 10y ago
  >> Heady Topper isn't sold outside of Vermont And yet it's "America's most loved"... Never heard of it myself. Beer hype. I've no doubt someone's gone off the deep end to get their hands on some; people do a lot of stupid things on behalf of the cliques they aspire to. There just seems to be a lot of this when it involves crafty beer stuff.

joezydeco 10y ago

I've tried a Heddy Topper (it was offered to me in a restaurant in Burlington), I live near Goose Island, and I've consumed New Glarus in Wisconsin. To me it's all about the scarcity. People waiting overnight for limited-edition brews, crossing state lines to buy exclusive brands...it adds this psychological value to the beer. When you strip that away you're left with another 100+ IBU beer that my palate eventually can't take anymore.

whistlerbrk 10y ago
Yeah, the obsession in America over IPAs really needs to end. I'm sure this is a good brew, but the vast majority of them seem to me to be an exercise in absurdity. Too high ABV and so bitter you can't taste the fact that most of these beers have nothing else to offer in terms of body or flavor. I liken it to Starbucks drip, you like it because in order to make it palatable you have to dump sugar and cream into it.
- jhbadger 10y ago
  I think it is more like getting used to spice. In the 1980s it used to be often repeated in the US that Mexican, Thai, and Indian food was ridiculously spiced and that there was no flavor except peppers and that the only reason to eat these dishes was to prove that you could take it. But eventually a lot of even US people developed palettes used to spice and could appreciate that there is a reason these dishes have a lot of spice. It's the same with hops.
  - beat 10y ago
    Meh. There's a difference between a complex flavor that happens to be spicy, and a mere heat bomb. Take a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich, for example. That's a heat bomb. It's awful, but it's very spicy. Meanwhile, two of my favorite Indian restaurants in town (well, one Indian, and one Trinidad) can serve most of their dishes with zero peppers - no heat, just flavor. Peppers can be added all the way up to gut-melting levels, of course. Beer is the same way. Complexity and bitterness are two different things, and you don't need a ton of bitterness to get the complexity.

wspeirs 10y ago

3 Floyd's Alpha King[1]... best IPA/Pale Ale ever. Let the flame war begin!!! [1] https://www.3floyds.com/beer/alpha-king/?age_verification=e748750b71 https://www.3floyds.com/beer/alpha-king/?age_verification=e7...

SippinLean 10y ago
practically an entirely different style in craft beer terms
DisposableMike 10y ago
I love Alpha King (and it's from my home state), but it's an American Pale Ale. Not the same as an (IPA) India Pale Ale, and certainly not the same as a double IPA.

defen 10y ago

If you like cheese and / or beer you owe to yourself to make a trip to Vermont and visit Waterbury and / or Burlington. Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, Lawson's Finest Liquids, Jasper Hill Farm, etc

dugmartin 10y ago
And then dip down into Western Mass - lots of good beers here too even for non-IPA lovers like myself. If you want to try something a little different grab some Ginger Libation.

jrlocke 10y ago

Heady Topper is a great beer, but make no mistake, the astronomical esteem for it stems not from its merits, but from its status as the progenitor of New England style (cloudy) IPAs.

SippinLean 10y ago
False dichotomy, it really is just a great beer as well. To your credit when it first hit the scene it stood out a lot more than it does now (there are three craft breweries in my area that release cans of NE-style IPA every month).
- jrlocke 10y ago
  I agree that it's great, but being 8th on Beer Advocate (4th amongst hoppy beers) is to me too high.
  - TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
    I think it deserves it.
    - SippinLean 10y ago
      to the parent's credit there's just so much competition now that didn't exist when Heady rose to prominence (Other Half, Tree House, Veil, Trillium, Monkish, LICBP etc) that maybe it's time to share the spotlight

baccredited 10y ago

Agree that Heady Topper is the best. Love Pliny the Elder and Zombie Dust (which are almost as hard to get where I live) but Heady stands alone for me. My favorite widely available IPA is Jai Alai. What is yours?

timmaah 10y ago
Spending the winter in south south Florida. The Jai Alai is good. Better than any of the other Florida IPA's I have come across.
defen 10y ago
I'm not sure how widely distributed it is, but if you're in Oregon, Breakside Flagship IPA is easy to find year round and quite good.

danbruc 10y ago

An American craft brewery is a small, independent, and traditional brewery where small means a production of less than 6 million [US beer] barrels per year. [1] A US beer barrel seems to be 177.348 liters so that we get slightly more than 7 million hectoliters. The largest German brewery produced 5.5 million hectoliters in 2002. [2] So US small is German largest plus 25%? Or did I make a mistake, is there yet another barrel? In Germany you are considered a large brewery above 0.25 million hectoliters or 140,965 barrels. Also the world beer production seems to be just shy of 2 billion hectoliters per year, so you can produce 0.35% of the world production and are still considered small? That would also limit the number of non-small breweries to 286. [1] https://www.craftbeer.com/breweries/what-is-a-craft-brewery https://www.craftbeer.com/breweries/what-is-a-craft-brewery [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großbrauerei#Gr.C3.B6.C3.9Fte_Brauereien_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großbrauerei#Gr.C3.B6.C3.9Fte_...

daviross 10y ago
Most of the issue there is that, due to tradition, the official definition keeps getting bumped up so Samuel Adams counts. (Most recently from 2 million to 6 million barrels) More practically, I'd say to look at microbrewery limits, which are 15,000 barrels/year.

Dangeranger 10y ago

What I found most compelling about the story wasn't the hype for Heady Topper, but the attitudes of the owners John and Jen Kimmich. They took a disaster and made the most out of it, and are now able to provide for 48 full time employees. While the beer is great, their story of perseverance over adversity is what really matters here.

bobochan 10y ago

I live in Vermont and love the new brewery and Heady Topper, but OH MY GOODNESS their stout, Beezlebub, is The Chosen One. It is the perfect libation, absolutely without flaw. The brewery is over an hour a way and I will happily jump in the car in a moments notice just to fill my trunk with that delicious nectar. The sales lines at the new brewery work incredibly efficiently and it was staggering to see how much money, mostly in cash, was being handed over every 20 seconds as the line moved forward. These folks are geniuses and I am happy to reward them.