Ballast Point Victory At Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter

Besides Sculpin, I haven't had anything from Ballast Point. However, if you start throwing out words like "coffee" and "vanilla" and "imperial" my mouth just starts watering. Because of this, the Coffee Vanilla version of Victory At Sea sounded absolutely delicious. Some people will say that lately craft breweries have been throwing in extra ingredients just to make a normal brew stand out a little more. While there may be some truth to this, the idea of a coffee vanilla porter really works well for me since the flavors tend to blend well together.

Upon pouring the beer, I noticed a nice aroma of vanilla, with roast underneath. This carries through in the flavor as well, with a surprising amount of residual sweetness. The bitterness from the coffee doesn't come through in the same way that it does in a lot of coffee beers, instead it has a smooth quality to it. Although this makes it seem as if the coffee isn't as present in the beer as it could be, I found it to be well balanced and subtle. This isn't to say that there isn't a fair amount of bitterness to the brew, it actually has a strong hop presence to it. And despite the 10% ABV, the alcohol does not come through in the flavor at all, with just a bit of warmth in the throat.

Even though the flavors were a little unusual for a beer, I found that they blended well and provided balance to each other. The vanilla may have been a bit forward, but I like it in this beer. If you have an opportunity to pick up this beer, absolutely try it out.

- Adam