“This cloudy IPA thing has come out of New England, but that’s not our game,” says Goulding, whose beers are hitting the Boston area for the first time this month. “It’ll be interesting to see how we play in a market where cloudy is the new sexy.”

Goulding, a Connecticut native and cofounder of Cincinnati’s Rhinegeist Brewery, says he respects and drinks the murky, juicy New England-style IPAs that have made brewers like Monson’s Tree House Brewing Co. and Canton’s Trillium Brewing famous. Just don’t expect Rhinegeist’s beers to be anything like that.


It’s not that Rhinegeist is afraid of hops. Goulding makes it clear that his brewery plays in the same zone as some of those well-known IPA purveyors, securing contracts for hops like Amarillo, Citra, Azacca, and Equinox. Rhinegeist’s flagship IPA, Truth, is a 7.2 percent alcohol by volume brew that goes heavy on the first two, also leaning on Simcoe and Centennial. Drinkers should get passion fruit, grapefruit, and mango notes without an overwhelming level of bitterness.

“It’s really light on its feet for an IPA,” says Goulding, who notes that two-thirds of the 3 pounds of hops used to brew each barrel are added post-boil (these late additions contribute more of an aromatic hop quality than an underlying bitterness). “There’s a drinkability to beer that I feel like very few brands attain.”

And, of course, a clarity. All of Rhinegeist’s beers are filtered, meaning there’s no sediment floating in Crash, a 5.4 percent ABV pale ale hopped like an IPA. Also hitting the Boston market are Franz, an Oktoberfest, and Cougar, a blonde ale Goulding says is the bestseller in the brewery’s tap room.

Goulding and his cofounders opened Rhinegeist in a former bottling plant, in an area of Cincinnati with a historically large German population. The massive space is a remnant of pre-Prohibition breweries and their reach. A rooftop tap room allows Goulding to survey what was.


“It’s an awesome place to perch and look out over this old city,” says Goulding. “From our rooftop we can see seven old breweries; in some ways it reminds me of Jamaica Plain.”

Boston gets its first look at Rhinegeist beers with several launch events, including Sept. 27 at Five Horses Tavern in the South End and Sept. 28 at the New World Tavern in Plymouth.

Gary Dzen can be reached at gary.dzen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GaryDzen