Green Cheek Beer Co. has established itself as a hop-forward brewery that celebrates the complexities and flavor nuances of IPA. On this episode of the Brewer to Brewer podcast Evan Price, Green Cheek’s c0-founder and head brewer talks about how customers respond to the brewery’s West Coast IPA versus its Hazy IPA on release days.

Price was interviewed by Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales.

The Conversation

Kyle Harrop: Are you seeing more people drinking West Coast IPA or hazy IPA at this point in time?

Evan Price: It’s two different crowds that we cater to.

I think our job as brewers is to make the thing that people want and do our best job at it. If you’re a chef and truffles are the big thing, I’m gonna shave some truffles on some pasta, and call it a day.

I think that you see certain people’s ego get in the way a little bit too hard with just forgetting this really simple thing that you by yourself can’t drink 500 gallons of beer.

As far as West Coast versus hazy, we see two very different customers for these beers. The draft sales for West Coast IPA definitely are better than they are for hazy.

Historically, the hazy can sales were the most aggressive for us from day one. We continue to see this resurgence of West Coast IPA, where we release a West Coast IPA, almost every week.

Hazy IPA, on the other hand, is about every other week. But, that sort of range goes much harder, where we go from single hazy IPA, double, hazy IPA triple. And then recently, we just released a quadruple.

We see a really big hit on those first couple days of those hazy can releases. And then it trails off for a moment.

On the other hand, the West Coast IPA clientele is interesting. It’s just a constant rotation of pickup where you see this even keel pickup of people wanting to get their West Coast IPA for the week, every week.

They both still do really well for us and we put we put a lot of thought and energy into both.

We just went through some really big changes on our hazy beer program. And I think we’re getting the best results we’ve ever gotten out of those beers. And they’re tasting better than they’ve ever tasted.”

Listen to the show where you download podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Overcast.

This episode is sponsored by:

Firsd Tea is a proud sponsor of the Brewer to Brewer podcast. Discover the advantage of using new and unique ingredients, like lemon myrtle or lapsang souchong. Firsd Tea has been working with brewers to introduce distinctive, high-quality botanicals for innovative craft beers. They focus on being DIRECT, FLEXIBLE, and FAST. You can find out more about Firsd Tea’s collaborations with brewers and tea ingredients by visiting firsdtea.com/blog/

The above transcript was condensed and edited for clarity.