Brewers, start your kettles and mark your calendars! On Monday, April 8, 2024, a solar eclipse will be coming to a sky near you. The eclipse, to various degrees, will be visible throughout the Lower 48, and the “Path of Totality”—the narrow geographic band where the Total Eclipse is clearly visible—will stretch from Mexico through San Antonio to Detroit and into Canada.

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate this celestial veiling of the sun than with a seasonal special Eclipse^® Hazy IPA.

With a sweet mandarin flavor, zesty notes of citrus peel, and fresh pine needles, Eclipse^® is one of the most exciting hops to come out of HPA’s (Hop Products Australia) hop breeding program since Galaxy^® first hit the craft brewing scene. And HAAS^® is the exclusive U.S. distributor of HPA’s full lineup of hops, which includes Eclipse^®, Galaxy^®, Vic Secret^TM, Ella^TM, Enigma^® and Topaz^TM.

“Eclipse is an amazing hop,” said Owen Johnston, HPA’s Head of Sales & Marketing. “It has high impact and clarity of flavor. It’s a hop that does what it says it’s going to do and the mandarin flavor is really reliable. Not every hop is cut out for single hop beers—but everyone who tries Eclipse raves about it.”

“The hazy idea for a solar eclipse is perfect,” Owen went on, “But Eclipse is really versatile. It has so many different applications in low doses and in lighter malt-based beers. It’s perfect for a new world lager or a summer ale with a modest hop profile, where you get that clarity of flavor without being overwhelming. This is where high volume, slightly hop flavor-forward beers can really come into the mix.”

“We’ve just run a number of collab brewing sessions with Eclipse, and brewers love it,” noted Jeff Barnes, one of the research brewers at HAAS’s Innovations Brewery. “We did one with Perfect Plain Brewing in Pensacola, Florida, using a combination of Eclipse, Eclipse Spectrum, HBC 1019, Citra Incognito, and Columbus in a Hazy IPA. We also did a collaboration with Sun King Brewing at their Sarasota, Florida, location using a similar hop bill with Eclipse, Eclipse Spectrum, HBC 1019, and Sabro Incognito to make this cool ‘Cold IPA.’”

Jeff went on, “I’ve been recommending Eclipse a lot and it’s gaining more and more popularity as more brewers try it. It’s a really versatile hop that’s perfect in these kinds of IPAs. When Max (Snider), Virgil (McDonald) and I realized there was a total eclipse coming in 2024, we thought…it’s a sign!”

Every brewer has their own approach but, the HAAS Innovations Brew Crew loves a clean malt base to really get to know a hop. “Our base recipe falls in between a West Coast and a New England IPA,” said Jeff. “We prefer it more in the hazy side of things, because Eclipse’s fruit character expresses itself a little bit better, with a little less of the pine character. We’ve gotten a lot of really good reception off of that single hop hazy recipe.”

Jeff went on, “When you do these single hop beers, you can get a wide range of flavors that won’t necessarily taste like an IPA, even though you made it like one. A Cascade beer is going to taste very different from a Citra beer and very different from a Mosaic, Eclipse, or Galaxy beer.”

“We want to have a baseline bitterness and we don’t want malt to play too much of a factor because you can have different malts that express different caramel or roasty characters. We really like using a slightly higher kilned base malt because it pulls the beer together a little bit more, balances it out, and then we hit it really hard with late hopping in the whirlpool with that single hop. And then we dry hop it, generally 2.5 pounds per barrel—that’s our sweet spot for all of our base recipes. We’re trying to just let that hop shine as best as we can. So clean bitter with moderately high alcohol, usually a little over 6% but you can’t taste it.”

Here’s a great single hop starter recipe to get your wheels turning for the April 8th eclipse. Call your local HAAS Representative, or HAAS distributor, to order your Eclipse^® today. We’ll see you somewhere along the Path of Totality!

Eclipse^® Hazy IPA:

50% Great Western 2 row Malt
50% Great Western Pale High Color Malt

1:1 Sulfate to Chloride ratio

Step mash at 50º C, 62º C and 72º C. 20 minutes at each rest temperature. Mash off at 78º C.

10 IBU target first wort bittering with Eclipse^® hops
10 IBU target 45 minute addition with Eclipse^® hops
15 IBU whirlpool addition Eclipse^® hops

Imperial A38 Juice

Ferment at 19.5º C, dry hop day 6 at 2.5lbs per barrel. Leave on hops for 4 days and transfer off. Crash beer on day 12 and carbonate.

Let us know how yours turns out. And cheers!