Everyone knows the way to calm a savage beast is to offer it a beer. While you’re up a palm tree. With a cat on your head. Or so the decal of Stu’s Beast Coast IPA suggests.
This beer plays in the waters of East Coast IPAs without crossing into sheer juice territory. It carries a fair amount of haze, has a billowy head, and there’s no shortage of hops – Beast Coast is triple dry-hopped, and done in such a way as to encourage biotransformation from the yeast for extra fruity characters – but there’s a surprise in the kinds of hops used. As well as Simcoe and Citra, Stu opted for a couple of English hops to change the flavours we’ve come to expect from East Coast IPAs.
Bramling and Jester hops bring some deeper flavours to accompany the bright notes: a touch of earthiness settles across the palate, accompanied by a rich blackcurrant character. Perhaps not what we’re used to, but a pleasant peace offering for the savage beast that is the East Coast IPA lover.
Mick Wust
