You won’t find “island-style” IPA anywhere in your preferred set of style guidelines. Attach that phrase to a New England IPA, and today’s savvy beer geeks probably peg it for exactly what it is: clever marketing for a tropically flavored beer—fun and frivolous. Nothing to take too seriously.
They might take it more seriously, however, if they learn the beer in question has won back-to-back gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival.
Founded in 2015 by Kevin and Kelly Krupski, New York Beer Project now includes three locations in upstate New York plus one in Orlando, altogether producing about 4,000 barrels per year. Both the GABF gold medals went to the Hazy Crush from the Beer Lodge location in Orchard Park, New York, although the others also brew it.
Head brewer John Hyman, who created the recipe, says “island-style” refers to its tropical nature; the NYBP marketing team came up with the beer’s name and nomenclature. It apparently speaks to a wide range of customers.
“Most weeks, it’s our No. 1 seller,” Hyman says. “It brings a lot of non-IPA drinkers, non-beer drinkers, over to the beer side of things.”
Experimental Gold
Those crowd-pleasing tropical-fruit flavors don’t come only from the hops. Both GABF medals came in the Experimental IPA category—Hazy Crush gets additions of dried mango, hibiscus, and pineapple.
Hyman says they use dried versions because other fruit formats they’ve tried were less consistent, sometimes contributing an odd bitterness. They source the dried fruits directly from Nuts.com. “The added mango contributes to and enhances the depth and complexity of Hazy Crush,” he says. With the mango’s distinctive, natural sweetness, “it just complements the hops well.”
Meanwhile, he says, the pineapple adds a brighter, more vibrant note without overpowering other elements of the beer, while the hibiscus brings an aromatic, exotic twist. “It’s floral, slightly tangy and tart, adding a ruby-red hue and contributing some natural antioxidants to the beer.”
Hyman was a farmer and homebrewer before joining New York Beer Project. In fact, he still farms 200 of his own acres plus 100 acres of leased land, using up his vacation time at the brewery to plant crops during the busy spring season.
For more than six years at NYBP, Hyman brewed an experimental range of beers called the One Series, honing his techniques and processes along the way. “The series allowed me to experiment and use whatever ingredients I wanted to; there were no limits,” he says. “I experimented with everything from yeast strains to hops, grain bills, and oxygen rates during knockouts.”
The 43rd beer in that series—called The One, Version 43: Island Edition—proved particularly popular at a local beer festival. Hyman entered it into the 2023 New York State Beer Competition, where it won a bronze medal. A few hop-tweaks later, and Hazy Crush was born; in 2024, it won gold in the same competition.
Citra and Nectaron
The hop schedule has evolved over time to where the earliest addition is now five minutes before the end of boil. (Hyman says they brew several other IPAs that don’t see any hot-side hops.)
A big step in maximizing the flavor and freshness of Hazy Crush and NYBP’s other hop-forward beers has been getting to hand-select lots of American and New Zealand varieties. “It’s a game changer,” Hyman says. He loves the distinctively fruit-forward nature of Citra, looking specifically for mango, orange, and pineapple notes from their chosen lots. “Sometimes there are two lots that you go back and forth on,” he says, “and if it’s that close, I walk away from the table to clear my senses before coming back to pick the one that’s going to work.”
From New Zealand, Nectaron is the other variety that stars in Hazy Crush. “It has some intense tropical flavors and aromas,” he says. “I target passion fruit and peach, but the lot I selected this year also had some interesting strawberry notes, adding to the complexity of the beer.”
While Citra and Nectaron take the lead in Hazy Crush—along with the fruit—Hyman also selects lots of Mosaic, Simcoe, Nelson Sauvin, and Superdelic for NYBP’s other hop-forward beers. He says he designs his recipes around using full bags of hops, helping maximize freshness—no need to reseal anything and put it back in the freezer.
He says they’ve also moved toward doing one big dry-hop addition, near the end of primary fermentation, minimizing the opening of the tank. “The beer usually drops another 0.2 to 0.3°P after that dry hop, hopefully scrubbing out any oxygen that was introduced to the tank.”
Other Key Details
After the hefty whirlpool hop load, Hyman says they put a heavy emphasis on removing trub from the beer before pitching the yeast.
After knockout, they’ll spin the whirlpool, allow a short rest, then drop the temperature down to 180°F (82°C) before spinning again, adding the whirlpool hops for 25 minutes, then allowing another 15 minutes to steep and settle. “I’m trying to keep as much of the hops as possible in the kettle,” Hyman says.
He’ll even hold off on pitching the yeast for a few hours, so that he can dump more trub from the cone of the fermentor. He says that also helps the viability of the next generation of yeast—they’ll repitch a handful of times, depending on the production schedule.
His preferred strain for Hazy Crush is Omega Cosmic Punch, but he says it’s not because of the yeast’s genetically boosted thiols. “Cosmic Punch is just super-clean,” Hyman says. “I’ve always found London III to have a chalky finish.”
For the water profile, he says he’s settled into a straightforward 2:1 chloride-to-sulfite ratio for Hazy Crush. He’s gone as high as 5:1, he says, but he keeps coming back to the 2:1 ratio for his hazy IPAs.
He’s also settled on Rahr and Briess for his two-row base malts. The NYBP brewpubs don’t have silos full of base malt—they use too many grains for that to make sense—but he says he enjoys the consistency of those two brands.
(Back in his homebrewing days, Hyman says, he would brew with barley that he grew himself. But it had higher protein and too much “terroir,” he says, so he sold it to local distilleries. These days, the farm is primarily focused on hay, corn, soybeans, and wheat.)
All told, Hazy Crush takes about five weeks to make, from brew day to pouring. About five days after the dry hop, Hyman starts dropping the temperature by 5°F (~3°C) per day, dumping hops every other day. He hits the beer with a centrifuge just before it leaves the tanks—he wants to get all of the yeast out of it.
“I feel like at five weeks, this beer really hits its stride,” he says. “I can definitely tell when an IPA has been put out in three weeks.”
Maybe some of that patience learned in the fields also succeeds in the brewhouse. Or, maybe this is just a beer that runs on island time.
