{"id":2735,"date":"2011-04-16T00:03:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T12:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=2735"},"modified":"2011-06-15T01:11:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-14T13:11:21","slug":"ballast-point-big-eye-ipa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/04\/16\/ballast-point-big-eye-ipa\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballast Point ‘Big Eye’ IPA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ballast<\/a>
Ballast Point 'Big Eye' IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My memory of this one gets a little hazy. I mean, the Creatures Stout<\/a> was delightfully<\/em> light, but it was followed by heavier things — as we continued to ramble, sit around and generally enjoy my unexpected Saturday night off. So far as memory (imperfectly) serves, I had a couple of Three Boys’ magnificent Oyster Stouts, joined a round of whiskies with my flatmate and his friends, and was given a Schneider ‘Aventinus’ that was accidentally opened (instead of the other kind of Schneider in stock). I was, therefore, perilously close to violating the Rule Against<\/a>, but — as is, admittedly, quite-often the case — proceeded regardless.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t not<\/em>, really. I’d just missed out on a proper glass of the same brewery’s ‘Sculpin’ IPA: a ludicrously-highly-regarded thing of which I only managed an instantly-impressive taste that (apparently) put me in mind of “angry peaches”. The Hop Garden had bought their keg of Sculpin from the fine folks down the road at Hashigo Zake — in the spirit of a rising tide lifting all boats, and in the knowledge that your competition isn’t really your competition<\/em> in the usual sense, in this business — and there were a few bottles of this<\/em> in the fridge, so it seemed the obvious backup choice.<\/p>\n

The impressions that stay with me through the partial fog of over-indulgence are simply these: loveliness<\/em> and balance<\/em>. The hops are met with enough of a smooth body to maintain an enormous amount of drinkability for something so flavourful. And they aren’t all about bitterness for the sake of it; they’re there in their massive quantities for a reason<\/em> — as a device to deliver deliciousness, not just a way to punch you in the head as an end in itself. Some American IPAs (and some things inspired thereby) can slip into cartoonishness<\/em> and a weird sort of blinkered extremism that (for me) often (but not always<\/em>)\u00a0defeats a lot of the fun. This isn’t one of those, not by a long shot; it’s big<\/em>, but equally even-handed and enjoyable.<\/p>\n

\"Ballast<\/a>
Diary II entry #92, Ballast Point 'Big Eye' IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Ballast Point ‘Big Eye’ IPA 16\/4\/11 @ HG, after a mispour Aventinus. Score! Their ‘Sculpin’ was on tap, but ran out before this, while I was distracted by the above — it tasted, from a sample, like angry peaches; marvellous. This is a lovely red-bronze<\/a>, 6.0%, 355ml $10.50. Fresh, fruit-laden nose. Very smooth body. It’s utterly lovely<\/span>. Despite the origin, the style, the strength. Another astute HZ purchase. Clever chaps. Delicious, and balanced<\/span>, as they are<\/span>, against their stereotype.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My memory of this one gets a little hazy. I mean, the Creatures Stout was delightfully light, but it was followed by heavier things — as we continued to ramble, sit around and generally enjoy my unexpected Saturday night off. So far as memory (imperfectly) serves, I had a couple of Three Boys’ magnificent Oyster … Continue reading Ballast Point ‘Big Eye’ IPA<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,20,12],"class_list":["post-2735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-pages","tag-united-states","tag-pale-ale"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2740,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/04\/18\/maui-big-swell-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":0},"title":"Maui ‘Big Swell’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"April 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"And then, a few days later, something rather similar -- which makes a certain amount of sense in that my Monday was spent dealing with the same nonsense that lead to the unexpected Saturday night off. But it all worked out alright, and was fun in its own peculiar way,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Maui 'Big Swell' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Maui-Big-Swell-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1854,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/02\/26\/coronado-islander-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":1},"title":"Coronado ‘Islander’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"February 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Not long after I showed up, Dave signed off and joined me, perched at the bar. He'd been bought a big bottle of this during the fundraiser night, and he split it with me. Which was extra-good, since it's not often that two bartenders \/ Beer Nerds get to actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Coronado 'Islander' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Coronado-Islander-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":767,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/16\/brew-moon-hophead-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":2},"title":"Brew Moon ‘Hophead’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm still kicking myself that me and my friends didn't know about the Brew Moon Cafe when we were on our South Island roadtrip a few years ago. They're in the charming-enough little town of Amberly, in North Canterbury, and we stopped there (we stop a lot, on our roadtrips)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brew Moon 'Hophead' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Brew-Moon-Hophead-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2058,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/11\/emersons-1812-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":3},"title":"Emerson’s \u20181812\u2019 IPA","author":"Phil","date":"March 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My impromptu round of Kegtris was apparently enough to earn me a second pint, this time of the also-just-tapped Emerson's \u20181812\u2019. The fashion for hop-tastic IPA being what it is, old-school classics like this are often unfairly passed-over. \"Old-school\" is obviously a fairly relative term, given that \u20181812\u2019\u00a0isn't old in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Emerson's \u20181812\u2019 IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Emersons-1812-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":901,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/05\/thornbridge-halcyon-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":4},"title":"Thornbridge ‘Halcyon’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"October 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting contrast against their 'Jaipur' IPA (and a worthy thing in itself), 'Halcyon' is a fresh-hopped IPA of higher strength but lighter body than usual. Its Best Before date had been set quite conservatively, to encourage people to drink up and enjoy it while that madly-fresh hoppy aroma was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Thornbridge 'Halcyon' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Thornbridge-Halcyon-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":298,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2007\/11\/19\/gage-roads-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":2735,"position":5},"title":"Gage Roads IPA","author":"Phil","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Gage Roads IPA. 19\/11\/07, present from KP+LB, 5.1%, 330ml. After trivia, watching Top Gear. Miss Parker & Mr Baker arrived last week, with beer in tow. This is Western, proper bottle stuff. Slight metallic note, but not nasty like Beck's. Good IPA. Hoppy + beery. Yum. Drinkable, very. Afterthoughts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gage Roads IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1042-Gage-Roads-IPA-300x204.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2735"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2813,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions\/2813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}