This beer is a collaboration brew based on the Ballantine’s IPA recipe in Mitch Steele’s IPA book. This tastes nothing like the typical West Coast IPA, but it is fantastic. The nose is catty, with lots of black currant and some lavender floral notes. Flavor is resin, with some fruity currant notes and a bit of floral hops. The malt is on the light side, but some bready Munich notes provide the right balance. Bitterness is sharp and sticky, but fades nicely on the finish leaving you wanting another sip.
If this is anything like the new Ballantine IPA, I’m in. I definitely want to play with Bullion, Cluster and Brewer’s Gold in the near future. This really stands out from other IPA’s, but it all works really well.
If you have access to this, I highly recommend it. For my money, Smutty is possibly the best brewery in New England (now that Long Trail owns Otter Creek), and is right up there with Victory and DFH as far as top breweries in the Northeast go. All of their beers are killer.
Was it brewed at Smuttynose? I would like to try that one.
Bullion, Cluster and Brewers Gold are used in the Ballantines IPA I have on tap. Those old school hops are underrated.
I have not tried the Pabst Ballantine IPA as it is just distributed in the east. I hope it has done well enough that they up production and distribute farther.
I thought it was pretty tasty (and I was curious to try it, given the history), but I didn’t think it was that interesting and probably wouldn’t buy it again.