Lost Coast IPA

Hey dudes and duderinos! So things are kinda sorta looking up in the world this week. The electoral college officially voted Biden in as president. However, Congress still has to conduct an official tally of the votes. And front line healthcare workers are beginning to receive the brand spankin’ new COVID-19 vaccine. Of course, White House employees will also receive the shot, including unnamed buttholes that actively spread misinformation and called the whole epidemic a hoax. Insert Kermit the Frog sipping tea meme here.

The only other newsworthy weekly event I can think to snark on this week is some middle-aged male doink wrote an Op-ED in the Wall said First Lady to be Jill Biden should not use the prefix “Dr.” because she has a doctorate in education, not medicine. The piece was written by a man adorned with an honorary doctorate (which means less than nothing). It is quite offensive to anyone who works in education or is a woman with an advanced degree. His article is a lot of words just to say he doesn’t like or respect women. Also, his name is Epstein. SAD.

Somehow, next week is Christmas. At the time that this week’s article is posted, it will only be a week away. And yet it does not feel particularly jovial, of course for – insert any bad thing that has happened this year as a reason. Plus, it’s in the 60s and 70s here in LA, not cold and snowy like in New England.

No one in my neighborhood decorates or puts up lights, nothing cheerful or candy cane coated. The multi-colored Christmas lights I strung up in my apartment last December choose last week to finally die outright, very sad. I’m not going to buy more, but I miss those lights. They were the perfect middle ground between no lights and just the right amount to enjoy a movie.

The boyfriend and I decided not to exchange gifts. We want to save money for a nicer place to live and some better household items. He did buy me Witcher 3 the weekend after Thanksgiving, however. I would buy it for myself, but he bought it for me so we can both enjoy it, plus we got a killer deal. That game is a damn time suck, yo! I played the first one on Steam and really enjoyed it, but visually 3 is amazing. They are both great games, and I highly recommend them. Nerdy’s husband is also playing the game. I may need to compete to finish first.

What are all you cool cats doing for Christmas dinner? I will be making a slow simmering pot of marina, turkey meatballs, Italian sausages, and of course, freshly baked artisanal bread. We had chicken parm last year, so it just felt right to continue the red sauce tradition. This Irish girl makes a hell of a thick sauce for that pasta. My secrets are wine (for the sauce and the chef) and lots of oil from the baked sausage. My family always made the traditional roast beef and potatoes with Yorkshire pudding dinner. Since I’m not a red meat eater, I was never as into the Christmas feast. But my family makes enough food for an army, so one could fill up on hot appetizers alone and be happy as a clam. I love making pots of marinara. The house just reeks of onion and garlic for days after. And who doesn’t fucking like red sauce, I ask!

All this wine talk, though, what about the beer?! This week’s offering comes to us from Lost Coast Brewery, an establishment, if you remember who’s Tangerine Wheat, snagged one of my elusive 5 out of 5 ratings. Also, I don’t have to bore you with the brewery’s history (even though some of us enjoy researching and writing it up…)

This is a no-frills beer, so this will be a no-frills report. And to be honest, with all the shit we’ve had to put up with this year, no-frills is excellent. No muss, no fuss, just straight to the point. Even the name is no-frills: Lost Coast IPA, perfect.

As I have alluded to in past columns, I am growing weary of SoCal’s IPA scene. As much as I miss all things New England, NEIPAs are not one of them. It is getting increasingly harder to find a real West Coast-style IPA, complete with pine resin coating on the glass. You can’t swing a dick out here without hitting yet another 9% hazy as all hell DIPA. FFS, I want a see-through bitter drink that hurts my tongue, not a pulpy sludgy mess of a liquid. And then I found this IPA here.

I enjoyed this beer from the first pour. Just look at that pretty amber hue with only a hint of haze. The carbonation bubbles cling to the glass just so, giving one the illusion of a champagne type beverage. The beer has a nice clean bitter aroma, nothing cloyingly tropical in those notes, just pure pine with a bitter citrus pith touch. Beautiful.

According to Lost Coast, they don’t filter the IPA. Still, the mouthfeel is clean and detritus-free, so whatever they are doing, it’s working. My drink hit the palate like raw silk, smooth but dry as fuck, just what I was looking for. The mouthfeel is midscale, but these are so damn drinkable that a slight tint of viscosity doesn’t get in the way of a drunk evening. And at 6.5%, you are in for a good feeling evening. I may or may not have consumed six of this Sunday night, yet no semblance of a hangover ever came.

I think this beer tastes damn great. I could discern light malt, similar to a pilsner, offering a mild yet complementary sweetness to the bitter hop profile. There are strong notes of bitter and juicy grapefruit, likely from the Mosaic hop. This is almost like drinking a shandy that isn’t fucking gross. I don’t believe I’ve touched on this in my writing, but I fucking hate shandies and radlers. Go take your fucking juice beer and toss it away! However, a beer with a hint of grapefruit juice (without the actual juice) fuck ya!

My tasting sip finished up with a highly astringent mouthfeel and notes of pine. I cannot stress this enough, this beer is precisely for what I have been searching. It’s piney, it’s clean, and it’s not fucking hazy. In my totally professional opinion, I feel strongly that this is a West Coast IPA that even Nerdy would enjoy. She detests anything that she claims “tastes of an air freshener.” This does not. So drink up chickadees because there are still two weeks left of 2020.

4 out of 5 Dr. Jill Bidens.