Sierra Nevada Brews New Hazy With Swedish Brewery

Sweden’s Omnipollo has a reputation of a craft beer rebel and innovator. The relatively young brewery has teamed with the craft beer industry’s ultimate rebel and innovator, veteran Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., to brew a new concoction, Hazy Day IPA, that will available for a limited time.

The small-batch hazy beer will be released next month to celebrate Sierra Nevada’s self-proclaimed National Hazy IPA Day on Aug, 15. The beer was dry hopped and will be available only at Sierra Nevada’s California and North Carolina breweries and at some bars in the New York City area.

“We had been kicking around ideas for a collaboration for a while, and then one of our innovation brewers had an idea to do something special for National Hazy IPA Day, a day to celebrate this juicy, cloudy style that so many people love,” says Isaiah Mangold, Sierra Nevada’s head innovation brewer. “Hazies are something that Omnipollo is known for in the international craft beer scene, so it was a natural fit.”

Omnipollo, which was founded in 2010, contracts breweries worldwide to brew its recipes and opened its own brewery in 2020 in an old church in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm.

Sierra Nevada ushered in the craft beer revolution with its Pale Ale many decades ago, when American beer drinkers were primarily drinking light lagers. The brewing company has collaborated with other breweries in the past, including Russian River in California and Other Half in New York, and next month will release an Octoberfest beer with Germany’s Brauerei Gutmann.

“Collaborations are fun for us,” Mangold says. “It’s an opportunity to create something special with friends from another brewery. I can’t think of another industry where collaboration is part of the culture like it is in independent craft beer. I think craft beer fans who seek out and enjoy experiencing collaboration brews can feel that sense of togetherness come through in the resulting beer.”

The resulting beer with Omnipollo pushed the IPA style “with a massive triple shot of hops,” Mangold says. “Hazy Day IPA has an extra silky-smooth, full-bodied, pillowy mouthfeel. Flavors and aromas like orange candy and pineapple with top notes of citrus are prominent.”

Before brewing the beer, Sierra Nevada brewers had several meetings with Henok Fentie, co-founder of Omnipollo, and discussed ingredient selection like hop combinations, the grain bill and what yeast to use. The aim was to make a beer that was unique and an expresssion of both breweries.

“The yeast shines through with flavor elements that Omnipollo fans will likely recognize, while the grain bill is indicative of Sierra Nevada,” Mangold says. “We were fairly aligned on hop varieties to use, but Henok wanted to amp up the pounds per barrel and convinced us that adding more doses of hops to the batch was the right call. The resulting beer represents a true mash-up of our two approaches and a heavy hand on the hops. On top of that, graphic artists from both breweries collaborated on the packaging design for the cans that will be sold on our online store and at Sierra Nevada breweries. This was a collaborative effort — and a fun one, too.”