Have you ever returned home from a holiday and immediately started planning your next visit to that same destination? It feels like Balter have taken a similar approach for 2024, with their Mouth Holiday series (which kicked off with a trip to New Zealand in 2022) heading towards to some of their favourite spots to capture those locales in a single beer.
Fittingly, the first stop is one of the world's finest places to enjoy a West Coast IPA: San Diego. Though brewed on the Gold Coast, the beer's creation saw Balter's head brewer Scotty Hargrave catching up with his old mate from Craft Coast, Blake Masoner, which makes me wonder how long this series will go on for given Scotty's list of brewing mates is probably about as large as the population of Tasmania. Anyway, Blake isn't isn't just creating excellent West Coast IPAs right now but cut his teeth at San Diego's brewpub pioneers, Pizza Port, so it's safe to say he's ingrained in SoCal's longrunning love for bitter and boisterous IPAs.
The topic of modern IPAs is something we chatted with Scotty about in great detail when exploring West Coast Pilsners and Cali IPAs where he talked about balancing heavy hop notes with drinkability. If you wanted to see how such ideas translate into your mouth then this is it, with this West Coast incredibly lean and dry while still providing enough bitterness to widen the eyes. Those hop flavours meanwhile give off sherbety orange, grapefruit, pine and a sweeter touch of fleshy nectarine.
Apparently Craft Coast make tacos that are just as good as their IPAs and it's hard to think of a better way to enjoy this beer than with an arm full of tacos. Come on Balter - post some of those out next time!
Will Ziebell
Published April 11, 2024 2024-04-11 00:00:00
