Top 10 Hazy IPA Breweries in Cincinnati, OH in 2020

A New England IPA is a style of American IPA that features an intense, tropical fruit centric, hop aroma and flavor. It is heavily dry hopped to the point of being hazy and has a fuller body, smoother flavor, and less perceived bitterness than typical IPAs.

This is the next in our series of top hazy IPA craft breweries around the city of Cincinnati, OH. Last time we did it for my hometown, Pittsburgh, PA.

10. HighGrain Brewing Company (Cincinnati, OH)

High Grain Brewing started their operations in 2019, but they have been churning out a handful of popular New England IPAs since the beginning. Their hazy Admiral uses NZ Moutere hops and their tropical explosion Boom Juice is probably their most drank beer.

9. MadTree (Cincinnati, OH)

When I first visited MadTree over two years ago, they had no hazy IPAs on the menu and the bartender swore that the owners would never do it. They had spent too much on filtration apparently. Well, a year later I ended up trying their very first hazy called “Like a Voss” brewed with the (at the time) experimental Voss kveik and it was great. Fast forward another year-plus and their TreeSearch and Doubleplusgood hazy beers are some of their most popular (and haziest) IPAs.

8. Rhinegeist Brewery (Cincinnati, OH)

Rhinegeist is another Cincinnati brewery that for the longest time held out on the hazy stuff. Truth and Knowledge were their staple IPAs and when I stopped by their enormous building, they didn’t have a single hazy on tap – if they even brewed one at the time. Now Saber Tooth Tiger, Cloud Harvest, Feeling Good and Astro Dwarf are all mostly available year-round and extremely tasty. Maybe one day they can start distributing cans of these closer to where I live. I already can find Truth at just about every beer distributor around.

7. Third Eye Brewing Company (Sharonville, OH)

One of the farthest-north breweries on this list, Third Eye Brewing makes more than their fair share of New England IPAs. In fact, their top three beers right now on Untapped (yeah, I know) are all Milkshake or Hazy IPAs. Their runaway favorite Jelly Brain Milkshake IPA is chock-full of Citra, Cashmere and Centennial hops making it a pineapple explosion.

6. Sonder Brewing (Mason, OH)

Sonder Brewing‘s You Betcha! NEIPA was the 2019 Cincinnati IPA Madness Winner. It checks all the boxes: soft, juicy, straw colored, low bitterness and major tropical fruit flavors. They also have a hazy pale ale and milkshake IPA that is among their most requested. If you are ever near Mason (just north of Blue Ash), you have to stop in and taste their stuff!

5. Nine Giant (Cincinnati, OH)

Nine Giant has a small taproom with an even smaller bar, but some very big beers. Most of their IPAs straddle the line between hazy and West Coast, but boy are they some of my favorites. They also have a great collection of Berliner Weisse beers that knock that style out of the park.

4. Brink Brewing Company (Cincinnati, OH)

Brink‘s Afterglow NEIPA is their most rated beer ever, but while its not on tap right now, they have three others that are fantastic. I mean, Set The Bar is described as “juice, juice, juice”… and has maybe the palest, strawy-ist (is that a word?) color I’ve ever seen in a beer.

3. Streetside Brewery (Cincinnati, OH)

Streetside is one of the most popular breweries in Cincinnati, but it is probably due to their fabulous sours. Over half their taplist (8 out of 15) are either Fruits, Sours, Berliner Weisse, or Farmhouse styles. Good thing for IPA drinkers, most of the rest are IPAs. #Blessed is probably their go-to hazy IPA, but they have others including a Milkshake that is one of the best around.

2. Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY)

I know – Covington is not in Cincinnati, but hear me out. When I last visited, I jumped the Ohio border into Kentucky and went to Braxton Labs inside The Party Source just across the river. I was able to get a whole flight of nothing-but-hazy IPAs and each one was better than the last. Honestly, I came out of that brewery with a 4-pack of everything I could get my hands on.

For those of you in Cleveland, they did a collab with Masthead, which I hear is fantastic. I didn’t get a chance to find it, but I keep looking.

1. Listermann Brewing (Cincinnati, OH)

Listermann Brewing was a brewery setup inside Cincinnati well before the craft beer craze started. That is not the amazing part. How they quickly adapted to the new beer styles blew me away. Many old-school breweries seem stuck in their ways and don’t change with the times until it is too late. Not Listermann.

Team Fiona (afer the Cincy Zoo’s new hippo) and their artfully named “I’ve Had It With These Motherf*****g IPAs At This Motherf*****g Brewery” are two hazy IPAs that you just have to try. They have tons of other Milkshake IPAs and Double New Englands on tap as well. If you go to Cincy, you can’t miss this place.