California West Coast IPA Thread (2022)

Gracias Raul for starting things off! Hope that married life leads to us seeing you less, your lady looks beautiful.

To change direction I'll open with a bit of shade. I grabbed a Hopocalypse from Drake and it was profoundly underwhelming. Like the "Hello fellow kids" meme of modern ipas. The grab was a 4 pack so I'll give it another shot, canned 12/13(ish) so it's fresh.

Anyway. Hope we all enjoy a wonderful year of clean, clear, bitter ipas. And I hope @RaulMondesi and his bride enjoy heretofore unheard of marital bliss. And that our friends and neighbors who claim to love ipa but don't like bitterness also find the beers that tickle their fancy as well

 

I did have a Blind Pig as requested but it might have been a few days late

 

AleSmith is releasing Party Tricks in 6 packs of 16 oz cans. I hope the price is similar to Pizza Port beers so I can start getting them back into the rotation.

 

16.15 for a 6pk of 16oz cans.

 

Welp... I'll have to get a pack.

 

Nelson!!! from Green Cheek is absolutely fantastic. 100% Nelson IPA coming in at 7.2% abv. Scratches all my Nelson IPA itches.

 

Fuck yeah, glad to hear it because I have some on the way.

 

There Does Not Exist became one of my new go-to breweries last year. Cracked open a Stellar Fawn last night and was immediately reminded why. Just a clean, solid WCIPA

 

I have yet to find this new Alesmith Party Tricks. 5 stores, 2 today (Traders and Bevmo) and nothing.

 

You aren't missing much. I think the distro is limited to more exclusive bottle shops. Where in california are you?

 

Buy any IPA from Beachwood.

But you all probably knew that already...

 

Just up the highway from them in Vista, 25 miles. I will find it sooner or later.

 

My only problem with Beachwood is that my only source is a bar that will let you take packaged beer to go. And since I've also been down south and know that a delicious can of amalgamator should come with 3 friends and cost me about 14$ out the door, I have a hard time pulling thr trigger on a $6 single can.

I still do it sometimes when they get a real fresh batch in though

 

2 of Beachwoods IPAs beat all 4-6 or so IPAs ive had from Monkish.

 

Monkish's whole thing is neipa though right? Soft, not bitter, fruity/tropical?

I dunno, I've tried foggy windows (maybe foggier?) and one other monkish ipa and decided I still don't like that style and moved on.

Beachwood does that west coast right though

 

One of the beers from beachwood was 28 Haze Later. And the ones from monkish have also been hazy stuff. Idk too much about ipa styles but they were similar in style to me

 

2 different breweries brewing different styles of beers. Both specializing in ipa's, one more haze than the other. Beachwood does a great job on west coast. Monk does make a good ipa once and awhile. The most recent is West Coast Winter. I dont mind Monks hazy ipa's but I prefer Green Cheek over Monks. I shop both Monks and GC. I prefer Revision hazy's over Monks but I havent seen any fresh cans from Rev in over 2 years. I'm also very close to RiiP when it comes to west coast and they (Ian McCall & the boys) make some hell of a west coast style ipa's/dipa's. And they've been canning a whole hell of a lot of cans lately. They just make it out of OC or too much local shops in OC. I'm lucky they and Beachwood are just down the street from me. And fingers crossed GC will be too.

 

Monkish's "West Coast Flow" was a fairly amazing WC IPA. Definitely one of my favorites from 2021, up there with the best NPBC.