Change IS good, but.....

I realize this may sound odd coming directly after my “fall is coming, change is good” post, but I’m sitting here right now with a bomber of Ballast Point Scuplin IPA and I’m about… to…. open it. There. For all you wondering what the big deal about this particular bottle of beer is and why I’m breaking my own “move on from IPAs rule”, let me fill you in. Sculpin is a phenomenal India Pale Ale, loved by hopheads (people who love bitter, hoppy beers) and regular folk alike. In addition, this brew scores an A, or outstanding, on BeerAdvocate.com, and is ranked #17 on their “Top Beers on Planet Earth” list. It is also typically sold only on the West Coast, or rather, not on the East Coast, so how I came to be in possession of this particular bottle still remains rather a mystery to me. Sculpin is a beer I’ve been yearning for for quite a while now, after trying it on tap at the Cambridge Common several months ago. So, when I came across it about a week ago, sitting alone on a shelf at Marty’s Liquors in Newton, I just had to pick it up. At $12.99 a 22oz bottle, it was kind of a splurge, but pay check be damned! - I just couldn’t resist. So, I picked it up, put it in my fridge, and now it’s here, in my glass. Let’s taste, shall we?

Sculpin pours a beautiful, cloudy orange-yellow with a white fluffy head that quickly dissipates into little islands that float on the surface of the beer. It smells delicious, good enough to eat, bursting with juicy, tropical hops. This beer is so fragrant, full of pineapple and grapefruit marmalade on bread toasted to perfection. And it tastes just as good as it smells: same juicy tropical fruitiness, same toasty malty backbone but with a nice tinge of bitterness that lingers just long enough.  This beer is highly drinkable and at 7% ABV, there’s no reason you can’t indulge in a second glass. So go on, find yourself a bottle, find yourself a friend who has a bottle, call up Cambridge Common and beg them to put it back on tap for you – whatever you have to do, do it, just make sure you enjoy this one last fantastic IPA before the summer totally passes by.