Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

Ballast Point has a fairly intriguing history for a homebrewer like myself. Initially one of the founders, Jack White was a homebrewer, who started his career in beer by opening a homebrew supply shop, mainly because he didn't have a place to buy ingredients and supplies and saw the need for a store that sold those things in his area. Through this store, he met another brewer, and together they started Ballast Point Brewing Company. Of their standard released, Sculpin is the only one I've tried, but they also offer beers like Victory at Sea, and Sea Monster (which I picked up a bottle of recently.) Sculpin is considered one of the quintessential West Coast style IPAs along with Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Stone's IPA, , and of course Green Flash's West Coast IPA. Typically, a West Coast IPA is all about hops and strongly bitter, with every stage of the beer being about the hop quality. This ranges from the initial sip to the lingering flavor, pretty much everything can be expected to have a strong hop character - almost always from the citrusy "C" hops. In comparison, the East Coast IPA can allow malty flavors through, and often focuses more on late hop additions without necessarily having all the bitterness, and broaden to use other hop varieties. So with all that said, on to the beer.

My bottle poured a hazy, slightly red-tinged straw color. It had a one finger pillowy white head, very loosely packed and rocky. Within minutes it had dissipated to a thin coating on top of the beer.

As soon as I started pouring the beer, I said "hello grapefruit" because the citrus hop character grabs the nose immediately. There's also other fruity aromas in there like peach and banana, and maybe a touch of pine. What's decidedly missing though is any sense of malt character to to the smell. Right away this beer wants you to know you're about to get hops, and lots of it.

At the tip of the tongue there's a touch of fruit, but this immediately gives way to a strong bitter backbone. The bitterness hangs around by itself after everything else about the beer has left your memory. There is no malt character at all to this beer though, even at the very front. I thought for a second that I could taste a touch of bread, but I think that was my imagination. I did notice though that after a couple sips, I started to get a metallic flavor in my mouth a little.

The beer has a very light body, feeling almost insubstantial in the mouth. Carbonation is pretty high and almost seems to get in the way a bit. Hop resins completely coat the mouth as well, leaving a slick and slippery feeling.

All in all, it's good, but very different from what I'm used to. There doesn't seem to be a lot of subtlety or balance here, it's just hops all the way through. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though. This could really hit the spot when there's a hop craving, but for the most part I'd rather have at least some malt quality. Maybe it's just a regional thing though. Still very much worth having

- Adam