Mellow and light dark lager, lightly caramel, not too sweet. Pleasant.

Malty, roast amber or porter with quite a strong wood smoke permeating the flavor. Does remind me of Aecht Schlenkerla but it's a bit over the top.

Coffee, cereal, sweet, very clean. Nice to have this kind of beer without added vanilla or lactose to muddy the flavor.

Delicious! Bright, citron, cereal sweetness & funk. So clean.

Lime and pith, hoppier than I expected. Some brackishness on the finish that I can only assume is coming from the sodium.

Simplistic, sweet. Not bad, but the finish seemed a bit harsh. Other folks at the table really disliked this one this year though.

Harsh, but simple. Mellows out a bit over time.

Straightforward caramel whisky amber - nothing wrong with that.

Dry, slightly peppery saison, grape funk, brett dryness.

Juicy, fruity IPA with a creamy, sweet finish. Touch of cherry? Something fruity in there.

Tastes like a citrus IPA but opens a bit dry. Very bright. Ends bitter. Clean and drinkable.

Grape right up front on the lips. Brett-like funk, definite on the horse blanket side. Buttery notes all the way through.

Harsher than the previous two beers, bare alcohol notes followed by a lightly fruity tanginess from the brandy.

Very much cocoa all the way through. Lightly creamy, ends with cereal and just a very light amount of tartness. Slightly vegetal.

Whiskey opening leads smoothly into a light, unsweet scotch ale, malty and caramel. Finishes lightly buttery. Best of the entire evening came first.

This was super-good, you guys. A sweetish light corn / cereal lager base but the flavor fades into a mellow, sweet, very light whiskey finish. A great combination that... is a little hard to figure out, but just works really well for me. I could drink a whole lot of this beer.

Okay, this won the flight, if only because the cherry and caramel of the whiskey melded into and overcame the finish that wrecked the other two beers. Not a subtle or complicated barrel aged beer, but quite enjoyable.

Similar burnt plastic sweet finish as the coconut. Peanut butter is just a hint and might as well have been nonexistent for all it was overwhelmed by the finish.

The smell of coconut is quite strong, and the flavor that opens it is buttery and pleasant. The finish was more off-putting, an oddly sweet, burnt plastic kind of thing. Given my previous review, seems like this was a step down.

Came across better, apparently, than last time. I think it's because this time it wasn't very flat; instead, a medium-tart berry flavor pleasantly sweetens out to a cereal finish. Interestingly, this did come across as cranberry again, rather than blackberry.

Quite good, but directly after Inferos the body seems a shade hollow in comparison.

Blech! It's like dirty water that has had a bit of peach flavoring added. Flavoring that might have already expired. That was terrible!

Still quite spicy. Still very good. Don't drink this at the beginning of a flight.

Smells a bit like a doctor pepper, although the flavor is definitely balanced toward the cinnamon rather than the raisin. The Commodore seems to be much less roasted in flavor than the Victory at Sea, so overall this is a much more pleasant experience to drink. Not bad at all.

Less burnt than I remember from last time, although still just as weak on the peanut butter. This makes a pretty okay smooth imperial porter, although it still felt a little strong on the alcohol and gets a demerit for disappointment on the peanut butter front.

What I remember of the Sculpin taste, but seemed a lot more alpha bitter on the finish. Fragrance is also very pungent of resin. No need to get this over one of the standard Sculpins.

Tastes like fake fruit flavoring, never something that works for me.

Strong, almost canned-juice peach scent coming from this beer. Opening taste is quite sour, and the flavor goes weird very quickly, with a weird tacky butter transition to a sweetish, pastry-like finish. The tackiness lasts through a long aftertaste period. Would probably have been better without the peach flavor?

Fairly resinous IPA, seemed stronger in that regard than other varieties of Sculpin I've tried. More than that, though, this didn't seem to be very pineappley - but maybe because that's already a hop flavor. More vaguely tropical - passion, pineapple, than distinctly pineapple.

By this point the basic points of VaS are clear: A thick porter with a bitter, highly-roasted finish. This works differently with different flavors; here the peanut butter is a lot less evident than in other PB beers I've had, it's there more as a slightly smooth nuttiness. The rest is just bitterness.

Reddish-pink and completely clear. Looks like a raspberry sour, but tastes... very stout-like after all. Not much roast, but a sweet, mellow, chocolatey flavor. Smooth finish. Very much lives up to the name.

Actually, I rather like the balance on this, though I agree that it is something of a candy flavor.

Interesting chili flavor, starts like jalapeno but moves oddly to the top of the palate instead of the tongue. Mellows out very nicely in the wheaty wheat funk finish. Other wit qualities come from the lime, but thankfully, no overt Belgian flavors which I think would have been a detriment. Heartburn city!

Resinous hops with a bitter yeasty finish. Mango is not super-recognizable, other than a vague tropical fruitiness that could just as well be passionfruit or pineapple. I was hoping for a little more quaffability and a lot more mango in this.

Very sour, like unsweetened cranberry juice, and the carbonation was totally flat, so the flavor was intensified. Very slight malt finish.

Smooth, but with a super-roasty finish. Didn't finish as bitter as the Peppermint, so that was nice. Really, though, seek out the coconut!

I thought this was much more successful than the Peppermint variant, mostly because the coconut was strong enough (and sweet enough) to counteract and smoothen the heavily roasted nature of the base beer. Very nice.

Not nearly as Peppermint Patty as Perennial's stout, this has just a hint of peppermint on top of a rich, creamy, but not particularly sweet beer. Lots of chocolate on top, but with a rather bitter, over-roasted kind of bitter finish.

Tastes like a roasty red with a kind of yeasty curl. If you squint you can get the maple but it's not as strong as I would like. Sweet potato? May have come through as a murkiness of flavor more than anything. This was interesting, but never quite emerged from weirdness.

Honey sweetness and a light fruitiness are almost overwhelmed by spicy hops. There was a lot to like here but I couldn't love it... I think a different brewery might not have had to assert the hops like Ballast Point does.

Nice roast on this porter, with subdued chai spice compared to other "chai" beers of late. This is a huge win, and makes this not taste like soap. All of this is well-balanced with a lactic sweetness to make for a very successful beer.

Very good, as usual. Even better in the brewery restaurant, which was gorgeous.

Fragrant, hoppy double IPA with a candy-like watermelon sheen on top. I'm not sure anyone has managed to make a watermelon beer yet that doesn't bring Jolly Ranchers to mind. Bitter finish.

Smells like coffee beans. Tastes like heavily, heavily roasted coffee, with just a hint of vanilla beans .It's a little bit much for me .

Strong spiced flavors. Still not a fan of these kind of beers. Nice textures though.

A malty scotch ale with some balanced pie spice thrown in. Rich but not too sweet, which is all good. A bit of a funky bitter finish, don't know if that's a feature of the regular Piper Down or if it's new with the pumpkin. You don't see a lot of pumpkin scotch ales, but maybe there should be more.

Clearly related to the Sea Monster. Opens with a vanilla bourbon sweetness but fades quickly into the same smooth, almost salty finish. Different, but equally good.

Thin mouthfeel but with a rich flavor - smooth chocolate with an almost salty roasted finish. I do very much appreciate the unusual character. A very nice stout.

Tastes like coffee and creamer, in a pale golden ale. Bit of a yeast tang at the finish. I am liking this trend towards golden coffee ales -- I wouldn't put this quite at the level of Goose Island's Fulton St. Blend, but this was fairly close.

Thai chili is Front and center in the flavor and aroma here. Ballast Point doesn't mess around with the chili although this isn't nearly as strong as the habanero Sciulpin. Lime and ginger round out the balance with the underlying, mellow wit.

Citrus and pine notes punctuates this tasty pale ale. Simple yet very well done.

An intense hit of concentrated hop juice, pungent and funky to the smell, opens this beer, before weirdly subsiding into bubblegum and sweet malt. The finish is actually somewhat pleasant, but the opening is hard to get past.

Wow. Great mix of a tasty IPA with grapefruit. Delightful on a warm day!

A delicious IPA. Well balanced with hops, fruit notes and smooth taste.

Very strong spiced rhum flavors. The sweetness gets a little bit overwhelming after a few sips though.

Fragrant, fruity IPA. A bit on the boozy side for me to enjoy it fully through the pint. And a total loser next to that Kölsch. But caveat lector - after a rich meal, my palate may well have been compromised.

Fruit taste I can't place, like dragonfruit.

Green hop smell with cantaloupe. Moderate cereal body with assertive but tasteful hops.

Fruity floral smell.

Hoppy sweet lager, with an unusual herbaceous quality to the flavor. I couldn't quite identify it, but I wasn't exactly operating with a virgin palate and nobody else seemed to notice anything.

Still surprisingly good - fresh, citrus hop fragrance, opening effervescence and good cereal malt body, and then BOOM. I think the habanero was stronger out of the bottle than on draft, almost too strong. That dings it a bit. It did make me want to explore the regular Sculpin sooner, rather than later, though.

Good flavor, but the pepper was a bit too much.

Smells like a normal IPA, but behind the inviting smell lies a pretty fiery beverage. The IPA flavors are still present but pretty much eclipsed by the pepper flavors and spiciness. Appart from its spiciness the habanero flavor is very noticeable and seems to evoke cheese flavors often paired with peppers. Overall very well made, but it's spicy enough that I wouldn't to drink more then a taster without some kind of greasy food.

Curry soup

I think I liked it better than last time. Still not a fan. Smells like curry. Has a strong curry taste that slowly gets stronger over time.

Decent, dry, thinnish porter. Hints of coffee in the roast but nothing overt.

Surprisingly not bad. Of the Vienna-style caramel-hop IPL variety.

Big hit of herbal/citrus hops but that faded through the can. Silky, good finish, quite light.

Quite fruity, a bit of roasted malt, bitter finish. Kind of like a well hopped pale brewed with amber malt instead of pale malt

Sweetish and otherwise unimpressive

Great example of how to add capsaicin to a beer without ruining it (*cough* Stone Crime *cough*). Smells of citrus and fruit, but on the palate those weren't that prevalent, instead a decent amount of malt balanced it out. Not much in terms of resin. Finish is bitter and quite spicy.

Remarkably well-balanced for something that is decidedly spicy. I haven't had the regular Sculpin, but the fruit, fragrance and resin are dialed way down in this beer, leaving a good malt body and a dry, bitter finish that complements the spice very well. I've had a run of good luck with chili beers lately, and this is one more.

The cumin-curry character of this was much more at the forefront of fragrance & flavor this time, which took some getting used to, but I think I still like it. Great sweet hints from the coconut without actually being sweet, with a nice chili burn at the end.

Smells like curry and cumin, coconut on the palate with a bit of roasted malts. Light kick on the finish from cayenne

Strong curry and cumin taste and smell as well as a strong coconut taste. Interesting experiment, but I'm not a fan at all.

Fragrantly hoppy on the nose but smoothly malty in taste, I got an unexpected, almost-coconutty finish that heavily recalled Kona's Koko Brown. I don't know if my taste buds are broken today! Didn't get much rye bite or crispness from this one, but it was really enjoyable.

Solid rye ale if a little watery. Standard ballast point crisp hop finish.

Lovely caramel wheat biscuits taste but without being sappy or thick. Moderate alcohol presence for 8.9%.

Mmm, so bready and delicious. I really liked the brandy barreled version of this but the base beer is also yummy. And doesn't nearly show its high alcohol content.

Smells roasty, not sweet. Nice short body with a clean roasted coffee malt taste. Vanilla finish isn't tacky or sweet, just a hint.

More coffee than stout to me

As with other oatmeal stouts, this beer is extremely smooth. Unlike lesser oatmeal stouts, this beer is packed with flavor. Not overly sweet, the roasted malts are present but are more akin to a bittersweet chocolate than a sweeter version. The bittering hops balance it out for a clean finish. I wouldn't call it a crisp finish, the malts still give a rich mouth feel, but that heaviness doesn't linger. In short, this is what you get if you took the smoothness of a stout with the strong but bitter maltiness of an imperial stout - exactly as adertised and very well done.

Big Wood Festival. Sweet, candy like with a nice bite. Very tasty.

Malt backing, resinous draw.

An unfortunate weird bitterness in the aftertaste. Dom called it envelope glue flavor and I'd have to agree.

A mostly clean stout, minimal tacky residue leftovers and has a nice roasted bitter finish.

Very light smell. Carbonation present at the beginning, present due to thin taste. Nice light taste, bit floral versus any strong cereal presence. Hop presence along the periphery then fades quickly before reappearing again at the finish. A solid light body beer.

A barrel aged lager! Brandy character nice and prominent, with a nice mild tartness. Strong alcohol and slightly bitter finish. But yum! Two strong Ballast Point beers in a row.

Like Maui's CoCoNut Porter, dry and toasty, but with the inexplicably well-balanced addition of curry (complexity), kaffir lime leaf (freshness) and cayenne (spice, and how!). A delicious enigma.

Has some potential, but the burnt coffee flavor ruins it.

Coffee and vanilla are better-integrated into the robust porter flavor than expected, but the burnt nature of the coffee flavor is disappointing. Still, not bad.

Once again a vanilla beer leaves me quite disappointed.

Kind of like a really light IPA, with a hint of citrusy IPA flavors. Tasted a bit funky honestly. Not a huge fan, but not bad.

Love this beer. The longer it lingers on your tongue the more delicious malt flavors you get, from a bittersweet chocolate to vanilla to just pure malty goodness. Enough hops to balance it, but this is not an imperial.

Great example of this style. Hop flavors perfectly balanced with malt. Not overly piney, resinous or fruity (honestly I just thought this was a really well done Pale Ale). A great beer, easy to drink and would certainly serve it to craft beer newcomers.

Delicious. Big hop flavor, clean finish.