A couple of weeks ago, the manager of our local pub mentioned that a very special beer was about to be distributed in Ohio and that he would be serving it on tap very soon. I had not heard of Sculpin or the brewery Ballast Point but he assured me that it was not to be missed.
I am on the email list for The Old Bag of Nails and usually every Tuesday and Friday I receive an update on the current line up of craft beers at the pub. However, last Wednesday I received an unexpected "News Flash" that stated Sculpin IPA would be tapped at 5pm! The wife and I couldn't resist the bait so we headed to OBON before the keg ran dry.
A beer that has good balance finds the union between bitter and sweet. Although an IPA tends to be higher on the bitterness scale, it can still be balanced with both the sweet residual sugars from the barley and the subtle sweetness from a higher alcohol content. Even with beers of terrific balance, the bitter and sweet can be perceived on the palate separately. The aroma from Ballast Point's Sculpin is a pungent blast of mango and apricot. As I take my first sip, all my taste buds seem to fire at the same time. The balance is so amazing that I cannot easily differentiate the bitter and sweet and the tropical hop flavors are perfect for summer quenching. There are no rough edges here and it becomes very clear that this is the perfect IPA for summer. It is so good that trying to duplicate it in my basement brewery seems senseless. I did however research homebrew recipes intended to duplicate Sculpin online, but there seemed to be much confusion about which hops to use and when to add them to the kettle. I'm not going try to figure how Sculpin is made, but I will be trying it again soon.
