Qualified Compliments Names Its Hops by Proportion, Not List

Most hop bills arrive as a list and leave you to guess which one is driving. Green Cheek published a ratio instead, heavy on Citra and lighter on El Dorado and Nelson. Back today at 7.0 percent.

• Style: DDH Hazy IPA
• Release Date: 2026-09-11
• ABV: 7.0%
• Green Cheek Beer Company (Orange, CA)

A hop bill usually turns up as a list of names in no particular order, leaving the reader to work out which one is actually driving. Green Cheek Beer Company skipped that step and published the ratio.

Qualified Compliments returned today, a double dry-hopped hazy IPA at 7.0 percent built on Citra, El Dorado and Nelson. The release note specifies going big on the Citra and lighter on the other two. It is one of two beers the brewery dropped this Friday, and a returning single rather than a new recipe.

The ordering is worth a moment, because El Dorado and Nelson are not normally hired as backup. El Dorado leans toward candy and stone fruit and has a habit of taking over the beers it lands in. Nelson, the New Zealand variety, is the one people reach for wine vocabulary to describe - white grape, gooseberry, something a little sharper than fruit. Either could carry a hazy IPA alone. Dialing both back so a third hop stays in front is a deliberate call, and it is the kind of decision that usually happens quietly and never makes it into the copy.

Green Cheek describes an aroma of rainbow sherbet with a touch of key lime pie, and a palate of pineapple chunks and freshly expressed lemongrass.

Expressed is a precise word to borrow. It is what a bartender does to a citrus peel over a finished drink, squeezing the oil out rather than juicing the fruit. Applied to lemongrass it points at something greener and sharper than the pineapple and sherbet sitting around it. That herbal edge is the part of this description that does not read like every other hazy IPA note, and Nelson is the likeliest place in the bill for it to be coming from.

Four-packs are 20 dollars. Qualified Compliments is available now at Green Cheek's taprooms, alongside a can-conditioned Belgian white that dropped the same afternoon.