THE WAKKER WEEKLY – Issue #1845
Our Saskatchewan Summer has finally arrived! You can escape the hot windy patios and enjoy our air conditioned comfort AND pick up some cool Bushwakker brews for your deck enjoyment all at the same time!
BUSHWAKKER SEASONAL BEER STATUS Our seasonally available HONEY THISTLE WIT, BLACKBERRY GRAPEFRUIT ALE, CHINOOK E.S.B., BARON BOCK and 35th ANNIVERSARY DOUBLE HONEY IRISH RED ALE are currently available. There is also a batch of UPENDI PINEAPPLE PASSION FRUIT SOUR and a firkin of SUPER PRIDE DRY-HOPPED E.S.B. working their way through the brewery!
Our WEEKEND SPECIAL DINING FEATURE for June 5th & 6th is a CHIMICHURRI STEAK SANDWICH. Our Saturday CLASSIC STEAK & A PINT SPECIAL as well as our Monday and Wednesday WINGS & A PINT SPECIAL and Tuesday PIZZA & A PINT SPECIAL are also great value deals. Please note you can also have a pop, lemonade, sarsaparilla, ice tea or coffee instead of a pint of beer if you wish!
Muscleman Max is quite “pumped” that the Hop Circuit is back for another year! Pick up your free passport map and take a hike or ride your bike and visit all six participating Regina craft breweries this summer! Collect a stamp at all six locations and receive a free 2026 Hop Circuit commemorative glass! Get out there and enjoy another beautiful Queen City summer with some sensational Saskatchewan suds!
Enjoy it while you still can! Our current Seasonal Menu will soon be at an end. We’ll be switching to a new summer smoked seasonal menu on June 15th. So enjoy these delicious throwback delights while they are still available: Chef Mike Favourite Pizza, Classic Bushwakker Potato Skins, Baked Alaska, a traditional Bushwakker Clubhouse and a Loaded Prime Rib Burger too!
UPCOMING EVENTS
June 5: FIRST FIRKIN FRIDAY – Special Pride Month Edition! Don’t miss this decades-old Bushwakker monthly tradition. A piper from The Regina Police Services Pipes & Drums leads a keg (the firkin) of special ale throughout the pub in a very colourful procession. A guest volunteer tapper is selected to wield the handmade wooden maul affectionately named, The Mighty Firkin Wakker, and attempts to tap the keg in one mighty blow! Our June Pride month firkin offering is a SUPER PRIDE DRY HOPPED CHINOOK E.S.B. The beautifully complex and elegant suds-soaking spectacular takes place at 5:30 PM.
June 8: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. THE MINISTRY OF GROOVE. Great 1970’s jazz funk and more. Love that horn section! 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM.
June 10: Wednesday Folk Night. SUMMER SINGER/SONGWRITER SUMMER KICKOFF SHOWCASE. Featuring Abby Kaitlyn, Avery Heller, Trent Leggott, Joel Alberts, Brendan Winter, Baron & Neil Child! 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM.
June 13: RIDERS HOST THE BC LIONS. Chef Mike’s favourite team is in town for the first regular season home game of the 2026 Riders football season! Kickoff is at 5:00 PM. Be sure park in the huge free parking across the street and then take the free shuttle to and from the game. Be sure to stop by and enjoy Chef Mike’s kicked-up LION BURGER & A PINT special before, during or after the game. Best of luck defending your Grey Cup Championship title in 2026 Riders!
June is Jazz month and the annual JazzFest Regina music festival is back! Both the festival opening and closing shows will be presented at YOUR Bushwakker. Tickets are now available for TERRAPLANE on Thursday, June 18 and The KRISTIN KORB JAZZ TRIO who will deliver a jazz tribute to The Eurythmics on Monday, June 22. Stop by The Bushwakker or visit https://jazzfestregina.ca/ Shows starts at 7:00 PM. Rush seating only.
What Role (if any) Did Hazy IPAs Play in the Current Craft Beer Downturn?
Story by: Owen Ogletree
Every craft beer drinker in America knows the vibe right now: craft beer’s in a slump. Profits are sinking, breweries are shuttering, and that old spark for malt and hops seems to be fizzling. How’d we get here, anyway?
Back in the ‘90s, there was already a hop-fueled gold rush—a craft beer bubble that burst almost as quickly as it appeared. But the next wave? That one was bigger, bolder, and a little unhinged. Suddenly, the beer nerds were everywhere: sipping bitter IPAs, swirling Belgian-style ales, chasing down imperial stouts so dark and boozy they could double as motor oil, and daring each other to try the latest sour beers. Brewers even competed to see who could pack the most hoppy international bitterness units (IBUs) into a single pint. It was a rebellion against the tyranny of bland lagers, and people were genuinely excited about beer again.
But tastes, like fashion, always shift. Around 2010, new beer crowd-pleasers took over: low-IBU hazy/juicy IPAs, sweet pastry stouts that tasted like someone dropped a donut in your glass, and one-dimensional kettle sours. Then came the pandemic, and everything went sideways. Breweries were scrambling; they were short on cash, short on staff, and watching ingredient prices spike. For some, survival meant chasing whatever trend looked hottest. As a result, originality often took a back seat.
Through all this chaos, hazy IPAs didn’t just stick around; instead, they became the main event. Walk into any taproom and odds are someone’s already asking: “What do you have that’s hazy?” But did the “haze craze” help steer craft beer into its current rut, or is it just along for the ride?
According to the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), which added the Hazy IPA style in its most recent 2021 style guidelines, hazy/juicy IPAs are: “An American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze. Less perceived bitterness than traditional IPAs, but always hop-forward.” That haze? It isn’t just for looks. It comes from a science experiment between dry-hop polyphenols and the proteins in generous heaps of oats and wheat. Flavorful hop polyphenols bind to suspended grain proteins in the beer, imparting an intense hop character. The result is a pillowy, creamy beer that looks like orange juice but tastes like tropical fruits. The BJCP goes on to note that appropriate haziness should not come from suspended yeast: “a hazy shine is desirable, not a cloudy, murky mess.”
Hazy IPAs are all about that plush mouthfeel, a blast of late-addition hop aroma, and a bitterness that barely whispers. Brewers hit them with hops late in the boil (or even during fermentation) to crank up the juicy flavor and keep the bitterness dialed way down.
It’s no secret that hazy IPAs have helped lure in a new generation of beer fans. Even brewers who roll their eyes at the style admit that when they finally caved and brewed a hazy or two, the crowds showed up. Larry Goldstein, owner/brewmaster at Spider Bite Beer Co. in Holbrook, New York, spells it out: “I just don’t like to drink hazy IPAs, so we never really got into the haze craze at Spider Bite. We’ve only made a couple, although the last one we did was quite popular with patrons, won a gold medal, and Forbes even did an article on it.”
Of course, not everyone’s sold. The old guard—the drinkers who got hooked on craft in the ‘90s and early 2000s—can be pretty harsh about the haze takeover. To them, most hazies taste too sweet, too “starchy,” and way too similar. They gripe about pungent experimental hops that bring notes of cannabis, onions, garlic, earthy fruit, and even cat urine to the party. These beers are delicate, too—hazy IPAs don’t always handle shelf life well, often becoming stale and oxidized before their West Coast cousins.
Paste writer Jim Vorel isn’t shy about his opinion, either. He thinks the onslaught of aggressive New-World hops in hazy IPAs is burning people out—literally. He says, “NE-IPAs’ quest for ‘juicy’ has led us toward increasingly undrinkable beer, and ‘hop burn’ is the culprit.” This hop astringency can irritate the tongue and throat, leading to palate fatigue among drinkers and beer judges who try multiple hazy IPA versions in one sitting.
Canadian beer writer Stephen Beaumont points to another problem: sameness. “A new generation of beer drinkers became borderline obsessed with the haze,” he says. This led to a race by many, perhaps most, breweries to get on top of the trend, often rushing to market multiple interpretations of the styles collectively known as ‘hazies’ all at once, literally forcing beers of other styles off the taps and shelves.”
Back in the day, brewers made what they loved, then taught customers why these classic beer styles are special and worthy of attention. Mitch Steele, the IPA pioneer who’s brewed for Stone, New Realm, and now Abita, thinks hazy IPAs might have been instrumental in flipping the script. He explains, “What made craft beer successful in the early days was that it was brewer-driven, and innovation-driven, and I’m afraid we’re losing that.”
Many OG craft beer drinkers claim that their visits to brewery taprooms have declined in recent years because of the prevalence of hazy IPAs and a lack of classic styles. Others say that the hazy IPA style remains popular because it’s tasty and appealing, and trying a new hazy IPA is still an enjoyable experience.
The Alchemist Brewery in Vermont is largely credited with pioneering the hazy/New England IPA style with its iconic unfiltered double IPA, Heady Topper, released in 2003–2004. “Since the day we opened in 2003, our focus has been making the best unfiltered beer we can,” notes co-owner/brewmaster John Kimmich. “We popularized unfiltered/unpasteurized IPA in a package and spent years educating people on the hazy appearance of an unfiltered beer. We feel that the current slowdown in craft beer has nothing to do with the proliferation of hazy IPA and everything to do with the overabundance of poorly made beer on the market. In the mad rush to outdo one another and make crazier and crazier beers, most breweries have lost sight of what matters most – malt, hops, water and yeast. We continue to do what we have always done, and we continue to thrive. Never any bullshit or gimmicks, just delicious fresh beer.”
Todd DiMatteo, co-owner/brewer at Good Word Brewing & Public House, says: “the folks I know doing [hazy IPAs] on a world-class level take them very seriously.”
DiMatteo does believe that hazy IPAs, along with fruited sours and big stouts (especially those with spices), collectively contributed to the current homogeneity of craft beer. He notes that inexperienced Untappd users might have also played a role. “The app allows anyone to join and create ratings that impact breweries. Many retailers adopted the app for their digital beer signs and let it dictate which beers are ordered in the future. Hazy IPAs, fruited sours, and high-gravity adjunct stouts seemed to attract attention and get higher scores, and this encouraged other drinkers to focus mainly on these three styles.”
Some brewers think the obsession with hazy IPAs has eroded appreciation for the respectable bitterness of classic West Coast IPAs. Larry Goldstein at Spider Bite puts it like this: “Hazies seem to have made some consumers think an IPA should have less than 20 IBUs. It seems that when most of an industry dives deep into a trendy beer style, many new consumers won’t realize that craft comes in other styles and flavors. If drinkers don’t like hazies or get burned out on them, the danger is that they may move to mass-produced beers with low flavor or into new sectors like seltzers and THC drinks.”
But maybe there’s hope. Current sales data suggests that even the haze diehards are starting to branch out and try new styles. Todd DiMatteo thinks craft beer has some catching up to do. “We have to remember to meet the consumer where they are, where they begin,” he says. “Beer needs to be viewed as fun. I know each generation wants to buck the previous one and not follow in their parents’ footsteps, but I hope that beer doesn’t get too caught up in this. Education is part of the key that unlocks the door for new drinkers to experience styles beyond hazy IPA. I also think that breweries need to embrace everyone curious about craft beer. Honestly, hazy IPA can be a gateway for new drinkers to enter our wonderful craft beer culture.”
A few years ago, judges at the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival watched the hazy IPA category explode in popularity, racking up the most entries of any style. Love them, tolerate them, or curse them under your breath, hazy IPAs aren’t going anywhere, and neither is their impact on craft beer.
TIME OUT – Got the blues about beer
Ever notice that people who spend money on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets are always complaining about being broke and not feeling well?
A Chinese Guy stands next to me in a bar and starts drinking I asked him: “Do you know any of those martial arts like Ju-Jitsu or Kung Fu?” “Why do you ask, is it because I’m Chinese?” “No it’s because you’re drinking my beer.”
Five year old Little Johnny was lost, so he went up to a policeman and said, “I’ve lost my dad!” The policeman said, “What’s he like?” Little Johnny replied, “Beer and women!”
A skeleton walks into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll you have?” The skeleton says, “Gimme a beer and a mop.”
It really doesn’t matter which way you swing. We can all agree the SUPER PRIDE DRY-HOPPED EXTRA SPECIAL BITTER with be a beautiful English Ale to experience at our June 5th Pride Edition of First Firkin Friday!
