With the warmer weather of spring (finally) here, I wanted my staff review for this month to be something from a highly-regarded brewer but that is easy to find almost anywhere. While taking a trip down the beer aisle, my curiosity was piqued by the Ballast Point Even Keel - a session IPA with the surprisingly low ABV of 3.8%. Is it possible to have good IPA-style taste from a beer with such a low ABV. I had to know!
Even Keel - A First Look
The beer doesn't look really exceptional at first pour. It comes out of its 12-oz bottle a slightly hazy golden amber with a thin and slightly off-white finger of head. The first (small) disappointment - the head is a bit faster to dissipate than I would like, but it does leave a thin layer of foam atop the beer. IPAs generally have fairly low head retention, but it was a bit of a race with my phone's camera to get the amount of head you see in the picture above! Lacing is slight,and after the initial chill wears off, the haze clears considerably to the expected transparent, medium gold color.
Straight From the Fridge
Fresh out of the fridge and poured into a glass, the aroma is a pleasing mix of some bright tropical fruit along with a very subtle touch of the usual IPA hop suspects - pine, resin, and citrus. The tropical fruit aromas give this beer an approachable and slightly sweet first impression, but the background of more traditional IPA pine-and-resin make sure you don't forget that you're sniffing an IPA. The malt aromas are essentially non-existent at the colder temperatures.
The taste backs up the aroma profile almost perfectly. The initial splash of flavor is fruity, melon, and almost very slightly sweet. This transitions (rather abruptly, unfortunately) into the piney American IPA hop flavors, with a fairly low level of overall bitterness. Once again, not much of the malt made it through (at least to me), but there is a nice crispness at the beginning that adds very nicely to the "refreshing" quality. The finish is a little bit longer than I expected (though not unreasonably so), but it also features mainly the bitter piney and grapefruit hop flavors. This back-and-forth of hop flavors adds an interesting contrast as you sip the beer(s) over the course of the evening.
The body is somewhere around medium, although it's certainly closer to the lighter end of the spectrum. Carbonation is moderately high, but it works well - the beer is refreshingly prickly but not uncomfortable or overly watery to drink.
Getting Warmer
Letting it sit out for maybe 45 minutes or so, the beer takes on a different (though similar character). The warmer temperature gives a lot more of an even mix between the tropical fruit and the more pungent, bitter hop aromas. I think that there is a bit of a pale and crisp malt aroma behind the variety of hops, but it's honestly difficult for me to tell. The hops are very prominent, but I really love the balance at this temperature - it obviously has its roots in the American IPA hop formula, but the splash of melon and other fruits gives a great break from the norm and really makes the "sessionable" aspect about more than just the low ABV - it tastes good, dammit!
As far as the flavors go, I feel like this temperature is also a nice sweet spot between the typical and the atypical IPA hop flavors. In the colder temperatures, the transition between the sweet melon at the front and the bitter resin at the finish was a little on the abrupt side. At this warmer temperature the transition is much more gradual and more like a carefully guided tour rather than an abrupt push out of a moving car.
Interestingly, the finish, which was moderately long at the color temperature, is actually fairly quick, leaving only the barest of traces after a couple of seconds. If you pair this with sort of moderately flavorful food, the finish becomes all but unnoticeable quite quickly. The perfect reminder to take another sip!
And Even Warmer
Forget about a bottle for a couple of hours or so, and the beer seems to have yet a third flavor profile - which is much more in the standard IPA realm. In the aroma, a much more piney and grapefruit character comes out at this temperature, with the tropical and melon aromas more subdued but still present (and still taking some of the edge off of the more pungent aromas).
Despite the increase in the more bitter hop aromas, if anything, the taste seems even more evenly balanced between the fruity and the bitter flavors. The pungent IPA flavors are noticeable right from the beginning of the sip (as are the other, less traditional hop flavors) and the balance between them is quite well done. Malt flavors are still relatively subtle but there is a nice subtle toastiness once the beer gets toward the 60-degree mark.
The finish may be closer in length to the colder temperature (that is, a bit on the longer side) as well as a bit heavier on the pine resin and grapefruity flavors, but the overall bitterness doesn't really appear to be significantly changed.
Final Words
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with the Ballast Point Even Keel, but I certainly didn't expect a beer with so much nuance and variety at such a low ABV. It's unfortunate, but it seems that lots of brewers are obsessed with things like high IBUs, high ABVs, or the like. Basically, lots of brewers want to out-do each other in any sort of measureable, quantifiable way. With all that emphasis, I wasn't expecting a lot from a 3.8% ABV Session IPA - a beer that, almost by definition, you're not supposed to savor - but, dang it, it's good. It has depth, it has nuance, and you can drink more than one or two before needing to call your Uber! What's not to like?
