Sometimes I take a sip of a good one and it is enough to make me wonder if there is something fundamentally gnarled and twisted about the very essence of my being. Am I some kind of outlier snarled up in the grip of a darkness, an otherness, something not normal. But then I just remember that I am consistently bound to the dramatic and take another sip. Of course, therein lies the pagan, ancient magic of the thing. You always crave that next sip, not long after your final one condemned you to a morning plagued by the Sunday Malady known commonly as a hangover. Oftentimes I have embraced the ritual which itself still vibrates with some wisdom of old: ‘to take the hair of the dog that has bitten you’ to relieve that hungover state that seems to have no antidote but to drink more of the liquid that poisoned you into this position. It works, and the lure of that bitterness is very rarely dulled even by the deepest, raging torrent of morning after pain.
What is it about this particular element of a particular style of beer that calls to my soul in such a way?
Thanks for allowing me that indulgent opening to yet another slab of writing pertaining to a style of beer that has already had entire forests worth of paeans written to it. As a style that sits as an obelisk to so much that came after it and as a prism through which can be viewed everything that came before I think it kind of deserves another one. It won’t be the best, it might be the worst but it is definitely mine.
West Coast India Pale Ale. Even just typing the words triggered a release of endorphins. I am physically and mentally wired to associate all the things linked with this style of beer with an overwhelming sense of happiness and contentment and that is what intrigues me most because my favourite iterations of this type of beer I would describe as having qualities that would not sound conducive to an overwhelming sense of happiness and contentment. I won’t bore you with going into the minutiae of what a west coast pale ale is. You likely already know, as someone who has a vague interest in beer, or if you don’t there are an absolute cavalcade of people who will give you a better primer on it than I ever could. I won’t bore you with how it was Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale that launched my little raft into the wider waters of Craft Beer because thousands upon thousands have told their version of this story a thousand times better than I could (but if you want to check I’m not bullshitting you try here:
What I will try to do is to explain why I feel the way I do whenever the mere thought of sipping on one makes me feel like Bill Murray smiling contentedly at confusing another reporter with an aside made purely for his own enjoyment or makes me want to go all David Wooderson and drop a McConaughey “Alright, alright, alright…” but it’ll never come close, however if Matthew McConaughey taught me anything it’s a kernel of southern mystic wisdom I heard him espouse the once: ‘the arrow doesn’t seek the target it’s that the target draws the arrow.’
ABV isn’t everything
For me a west coast pale ale does not need to be from the west coast of America. A dream of mine is to travel to the west coast of America and partake of some pale ale there but life hasn’t slid me that through ball quite yet so it will remain a goal yet to be tucked away with aplomb a little longer but that isn’t an issue while there are so many great takes on it being iterated all over the world. ABV-wise I am easy. I can understand praying at the altar of a big old, scary 8% bastard wielding a sledgehammer ready to take your tongue on a one way ride to A TOWN WHERE YOU CAN NO LONGER TASTE ANYTHING BECAUSE YOUR TASTEBUDS HAVE BEEN TORN ASUNDER. You just have to be careful that when you’re done worshipping you aren’t staring down the shotgun of a long night of the soul. I also appreciate those guys that keep it sensible and keep it way down low. Low enough on the scale that they drop the India all together and cease to technically exist in this style I’m writing all about but I include them anyway because, to extend the laborious religious theme, I’m an open church. These west coast pale ales that keep it sub-6% are some of my favourites. They embrace the key elements that make my depleted serotonin start whirring again but without forcing me to focus only on the beer. Sometimes I like to enjoy a beer concurrently with another activity, thinking about the beer when I take a swig but not having to in between. The OG exists in this particular section, of course, Sierra Nevada, insisting it is a pale ale whilst tasting like what most call IPAs nowadays. I promised myself I wouldn’t get bogged down in the swamp of definitions so I’ll just say I will consume anything that is a good example of these things I am describing and I don’t give a damn if it’s got an ‘I’ in it or not.
To the dark side?
The next factor is whether I prefer a light or darker colour to my westie (this is what I affectionately call them on account of me having zero connections to west highland terriers in my life but so many connections to beer – another sad indictment of my life, probably) and I don’t. I tend to feel like those with a darker malt bill, setting off those more caramel tones to the beer require a little more attention. They incline you more to sip and enjoy. They feel more robust and autumnal. Those straw looking lads, meanwhile, lend themselves to a little more drinkability finding themselves chucked down at an alarming rate if the sun is shining. Brew York do a nice contrast of the difference between the two with their Big Eagle representing the darker versions and their Cereal Killa erring, like so many Jedis, on the light side. Drinking a bottle of Russian River’s Pliny The Elder was one of the greatest moments of my life and is probably the greatest beer that has ever passed my lips and this is one that shines an angelic yellow in the glass.
Assertive Bitterness
Last but not least a beer true to my particular concept of a ‘west coast beer’ MUST be noticeably bitter. Assertive bitterness might be my favourite beer descriptor phrase. A bitterness that asserts itself on your palate is the thing I crave most in beer. That ringing vibration humming off your tongue was the thing that really turned my world upside down when I first tried that god-knows-how-old bottle of Sierra Nevada in my local chain pub. I still chase that same feeling to this day. I try to convince myself it is just some quirk of taste and that it is purely random but it must be informed by something deep in my genetic stew, right? Throughout the years the melding of all of my ancestor’s genetic code has twirled and ensnared one another and this craving for intense bitterness has persisted, perhaps an element of risk-taking that has lasered like a red thread through the generations. Tasting something bitter should set off an alarm that perhaps this is something that could do us harm. Humans are the only animal on the planet that actively seek out bitter food and drink as something to enjoy. I don’t think it is a coincidence that people like us, enamoured with the bitterness of beer and its intoxicating effects also often enjoy a dark, bitter liquid that similarly alters our brain chemistry in the form of coffee. There’s something so beautifully human about it. Finding such experiential delight in something nature tells us is not ideal for consumption and making it a nutritional bastion of our species’ entire existence.
The crux of the thing is that this style of beer, as much as I try and dissect its component parts, speaks to me on that ancient level. I can elaborate on the precise bouquets of the malt aromas and how the hop profile is supported by a certain yeast strain and find new ways to describe exactly the type of beer you knew I was talking about as soon as I called it a ‘proper West Coast IPA’ but at the end of the day I have to actively try and needle that stuff out of my brain when I’m drinking such a beer. What it is really doing is make me ruminate on the gnarled and twisted essence of my very being and contemplating how it speaks to my soul like little else of this world can.
But, like I said, I am bound to the dramatic.
JR’s Top Four Easily Found Westies To Try:
- Pale Ale – Sierra Nevada.
- Pondera – Thornbridge.
- Big Eagle – Brew York.
- Soundwave – Siren.
Words and images by John Rudge (AKA Johnny Beer Boy)
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