Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

Sculpin is one of the IPA made by Ballast Point Brewing Company in San Diego, CA. I believe they recently started bottling this beer (in the last year or so) and since then it has hit the BA top 100. I had the chance to try a bottle of Sculpin a few months ago when I managed to find a bottle, so I was excited to see plenty of bottles when I went to Decicco's last week.

Sculpin pours a slightly hazy golden orange with plenty of white foamy head. The smell is dominated with citrus and pine hop aromas. Lots of orange, lemon, peach, and pine and it is great. The flavor is fairly sweet upfront with plenty of orange-mango and pine hop flavors that is finished with a nice hop bitterness. For a heavily hopped, 7% abv beer this is very drinkable. The only thing holding it back is the price. I paid about $10 for a bomber and it was worth it, but it will keep me from buying more than a bottle every once and awhile. As far as single IPAs goes this is one of my favorite and I think Sculpin is much better than Balast Point's other IPA offering, Big Eye IPA which seems to have a harsher hop bitterness without any of the delicious citrus and pine flavors. I've heard rumors that Ballast Point will be putting out even more Sculpin and moving to 12 ounce bottles. I hope it's true, because picking up a 4-pack of Sculpin would be awesome.