Captain Video's Mountain Retreat

Was having Pizza at the Toad House last week, saw this, and thought of you, #IPAMonday :)

Port Brewing -- Wipeout I.P.A -- India Pale Ale

ABV: 7.0%

IBU: 77-78

OG: 1.064

FG: 1.008

Style: IPA (I didn't double-check the stats against the style-guide to see if this beer actually complies, but this sounds about right to me)

website: http://www.portbrewing.com

Background:

Located 15 miles east of Carlsbad, CA, in San Marcos, CA, the current brewery is built in the old Stone Brewing facility. Stone relocated just down the road to Escondido. I'm thinking of visiting San Diego later this month -- that plan's starting to sound better.

The current brewing operations officially started in 2006, but the brewery's lineage traces back to the Solana Beach Pizza Port in 1993. Port Brewing also produces the Lost Abbey Ales.

Anyway, check their website -- it's chock full of information. On to the beer!

By the looks of the beer in the bottle I was hoping for something like Lagunitas, but being so completely clueless about this brewery and this beer, I didn't really have much in the way of expectations.

After looking at the website, and seeing things like solid technical stats, a line of Abbey beers, and a full list of ingredients, I was thinking, "these guys have the right idea, this isn't gonna suck."

Given that it's a 7.0% IPA with a lot of different hop varieties, I guess I was really expecting a "big" IPA -- which can be a bad thing if the brewer is more concerned with "extreme" and less with "balance."

Tastage:

It doesn't suck. I opened it, and let it warm up and breathe a bit before pouring it.

Visually, the beer pours very cloudy and I'd guess the color at about 5 to 6 degrees lovibond. It poured with a solid white head that settled down to about 2 fingers high and stuck firmly to the sides of the glass (lacing) as I did my best to rapidly reduce the volume of liquid. Nucleation (carbonation) was uniform and continuous in the volume.

The aroma was all hops and a bit of alcohol. The bottle listed cascade hops but the website didn't. I got a really grassy hop aroma, not the strong grapefruit that a good dose of cascades will lend, so I'm guessing the info on the website might be more accurate and up to date.

The initial taste was very good and the carbonation wasn't shocking -- which is usually my complaint about bottled IPAs. There's a good solid sweet maltiness residing in the beer, creating more body than I would have expected from a 1.008 FG beer (I thought it would finish a bit dryer). The hop profile is really nicely spread out -- traveling noticeably from the front of the tongue, to the sides, into the cheeks, and then staying present in the throat long after the swallow.

This beer makes me happy. It's not as aggressive as Lagunitas, the carbonation provides a better balance to the experience, and the lingering aftertaste calls me back for another sip. I prefer an IPA that has a bit more of a malt character, but there's really nothing wrong with this beer. I could happily drink the shit outta this beer. Served at a proper temperature and through a beer engine, this stuff would be awesome.

Post Script: I just took a look at the style guide. Technically (keep in mind, a guide is a guide, not a law) the hopping is at the level of an Imperial IPA while the malting and alcohol levels come in at around the English or American IPA style levels. Overall, I'd put my feelings about this beer closer to an English style than an Imperial or American. The hops weren't as fruity as I'd expect from an American style and the Imperials usually have a lot more complicated things going on in the body and maltiness in order to get the alcohol level up near the double digits. This beer's to big to be anything like a sessionable IPA, but it's way more quaffable than an Imperial. Port's done a great job of balancing this high IBU level with this more American style malt blend.