Ballast Point Sea Monster Stout

Sea Monster StoutWhile I was buying beers for the Pale Ale Challenge, I came across the Sea Monster Stout from Ballast Point. I’ve had this beer several times at O’Brien’s and Home Brew Mart, but never seen it bottled. I had to give this bomber a spin.

From the deep dark depths of our Brewmaster’s imagination comes this rich and monstrous oatmeal stout. Our Sea Monster embodies all that the true dark beer aficionado will appreciate: roasted coffee notes, with hints of bittersweet chocolate and currant flavors all brought together by a perfect hop balance.

Don’t fear the Monster!

Our Robust Series gives all beer lovers an opportunity to try our most rare beers, previously available only on draft at select tap houses. Enjoy!

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San Diego Pale Ale Challenge

San Diego Pale AlesThe first in a series of posts dedicated to comparing San Diego beers within a specific style. Pale Ale being one of the most popular styles, it was an obvious choice for the first challenge. I wanted to keep things simple, so I drove down to BevMo and grabbed five different beers. These five were all easily accessible at the time, we’ll run the Pale Ale tastings again with some of the breweries that I’ve left out at a later date.

Here’s the basic idea of how we’re going to run the single blind (the drinkers don’t know what they’re rating) tastings. Each beer will be assigned a number, we’ll pull numbers at random to select the order of the tastings. From there, each participant will be given ~4 ounces to review. Their thoughts and rankings on each beer will be reported below. Like I said earlier, simple. :)

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