Ballast Point Victory at Sea

Brewed by Ballast Point Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
San Diego, California USA

Serve in Shaker, Snifter

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Bottle. Damn fine beer. Damn fine. Almost a black pour with a small light beige head. The coffee is the first thing that hits your nose, then the wonderfully roasted malt, vanilla, and some chocolate tones set the table for what is going to be a very nice drinking experience. The mouthfeel on this beer is very nice. The coffee and vanilla work in harmony and the chocolate and roast give this beer wonderful complexity...this is a super beer.

(22oz bottle, courtesy of blutt59) Pours a dark brown (near black) body with a small tan head. Aroma of coffee, vanilla, nuts, and roasted malt. Flavor of coffee, roasted malt, chocolate, and vanilla.

Thanks to JuiceIsLoose for the taste. Good stuff. Aroma, of course, is coffee and vanilla. The flavor has a bitter kick of strong coffee, with just enough vanilla sweetness to balance things out. Very good.

UPDATED: APR 16, 2009 Bottle. More like "a humilating defeat at the hands of a short ship." Smells like copper, tastes like copper. Bad bottle? I’ll have to have another someday to see if this was just a freak thing.

Bottle thanks to Hophead22. Poured black in color with lots of coffee chocolate and malt in the aroma. Taste is lots of coffee, vanilla, roasted malts, and very smooth going down. Way to easy to drink at 10%!! Great beer.

Bomber poured into a tulip. Pours dark, dark brown out of the bottle and settles in black in the glass underneath a big tan head that leaves good lacing and hangs on as a cap for a while. The aroma is really nice and big on this one with the subtle sweetness of the vanilla balancing perfectly with the massive roasted coffee smell. Lots of dark malts underlying the other aromas. The taste is a bit sweeter than the aroma. The initial tastes are of big roasted coffee and dark malts. The vanilla is subtle to start but really comes on strong in the finish and leaves a very sweet finish. The mouthfeel is medium bodied and very smooth with good carbonation. The finish is sweet but slightly dry with the roasted coffee character. This is a very good porter with some very bold flavors and aromas, dominated by the coffee but with the vanilla reallyl coming through in the taste. Great beer.

Bottle shared by wolf at SL. Black in color, nice lilttle head. Nice aroma of roasted malts and chocolate. Taste is coffee, vanilla, chocolate, and roasted malts. Way to easy to drink. Light/medium texture. Creamy smooth. Ballast Point makes some really good beers and this was one of them. Thanks to wolf and hophead22...

Another huge thanks to Smokepot23. Crushed with Jakebra. One delicious beer. Nose of coffee, vanilla, chocolate. Flavor has the same but chocolate is more extreme. Thick, roasty, complex, and awesome.

Bottle from the Scripps Ranch location. Nose is more subdued than the tap version, but still smacks of coffee and the addition of light vanilla is nice. Flavor is much the same, but the coffee shows through even more - kept light on the palate by the vanilla. Make no mistake, this doesn’t have the distinct vanilla flavor one might expect: instead, the coffee and vanilla are unified exquisitely, eliminating the bitter, semi-sour sensations often imparted by the bean. This is very drinkable.
Earlier Rating: 1/23/2008 Total Score: 4.7
Absolutely! Ab-So-Lutely! I looked for a bottle of this everywhere I went for months, but finally found it on tap at the Stone World Bistro. Dear Lord, yes! It’s like coffee that can get you hammered! This loses minor points on Palette/Flavor because it’s not at all complicated: it’s coffee; and one more overall because it’s brilliantly tasty, but I don’t know if I could drink it every day. An absolute masterwork.

22oz from Carrboro Beverage Company. Having wanted to try this for quite a while, I was expecting to be underwhelmed after the recent arrival of KBS. But I have to say that this brew is nearly on a par. Thick creamy pour, motor oil and coffee head. Sweet vanilla notes are very subtle in the nose, a nice surrogate for the barrel usually favored in this style. Creamy body, almost oatmeal stout-like. Coffee is delicious, seems like it’s cold-filtered. Rich and complex base porter is satisfying in its own right, but the interplay of dessert beer flavors is really scrumptious.