While the US is flooded with great beer from coast to coast with over 9,000 breweries currently in operation, it’s difficult to argue the brewing prowess of California. Some of the biggest names and most highly-rated beers in the country (if not the world) come from this West Coast state. I’m talking names like Stone, Ballast Point, Russian River, Green Flash, Lagunitas, and countless others.
West Coast IPAs, pilsners, stouts, and everything in between are beloved by drinkers worldwide. If you enjoy it, someone in California brews it. And that’s a good thing for beer fans.
The best part? With so much great beer coming out of the state, there are countless noteworthy beers available in grocery and beer stores all over the country. To check in on the best of the bunch, I decided to grab eight of my favorites that are available almost anywhere and do another blind taste test. For this round, I stuck to IPAs, pale ales, and pilsners. Keep scrolling to see how everything turned out.
Today’s Lineup:
- Anchor Steam Beer
- Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
- Ballast Point Sculpin
- Societe The Pupil
- Bear Republic Racer 5
- 21st Amendment El Sully
- Stone IPA
- Firestone Walker Pivo Pils
Part 1: The Taste
Taste 1
Tasting Notes:
The nose is surprisingly fruity with notes of ripe peach and pineapple as well as grapefruit, tangerine, and lightly floral hops. The palate is filled with lemongrass, tangerine, grapefruit, peach, and dank, fairly bitter, biting hops. A great, well-balanced beer.
Taste 2
Tasting Notes:
The nose is a mix of caramel malts, grapefruit, orange zest, lemon, and floral hops. The palate has some nice yeasty fruity flavor followed by biscuit-like, caramel malts that pair well with the grapefruit, lemon, and slightly bitter, herbal, floral hops. Crisp, citrus, and malts. This beer has it all.
Taste 3
Tasting Notes:
This beer starts with a nice kick of brown bread and caramel before moving into light citrus and floral, herbal, slightly dank pine. There’s more of the same on the palate and that’s a good thing. Wet grass, freshly baked bread, caramel malts, citrus peels, and lightly herbal, piney hops make this an easy-drinking, crushable beer.
Taste 4
Tasting Notes:
There’s a ton of citrus on this beer’s nose. I smelled grapefruit and orange peel. But really that was all. The palate continued this trend with a gut punch of citrus including more grapefruit and some tangerine, but not much else discernable. The finish was slightly floral and very bitter.
Taste 5
Tasting Notes:
The nose is highlighted by cereal grains, corn, light citrus peel, and just a hint of pine. The palate is littered with more cereal grains, wet grass, caramel, and floral hops. It’s crisp and crushable, but fairly one-dimensional.
Taste 6
Tasting Notes:
Baked bready, grapefruit, orange peel, and bright, floral pine make up this beer’s nose. It’s very welcoming and the palate contains more bready malts, caramel, citrus peel, and herbal, floral hops. The finish is piney and bitter. Pretty by the book, but not overly exciting.
Taste 7
Tasting Notes:
A nose of mango, guava, pineapple, tangerine, grapefruit, and just a hint of resinous pine greeted me before my first sip. Drinking it revealed lime zest, lemongrass, honeydew melon, pineapple, grapefruit, peach, and a nice final kick of dank, herbal, slightly bitter hops. Everything is in perfect harmony.
Taste 8
Tasting Notes:
Up front, this beer has a ton of malt presence on the nose. There’s caramel and freshly baked bread abound. It leads into a bit of fruit and herbal hops. The palate is filled with more caramel, dried fruits, and surprisingly bitter, floral hops at the finish.
Part 2: The Ranking
8) Stone IPA (Taste 4)
ABV: 6.9%
Average Price: $11.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Stone IPA was first brewed to celebrate its first anniversary way back in 1997. Over the years, this Magnum, Chinook, Centennial, Azacca, Calypso, Ella, Vic Secret hop-filled beer has become one of the most popular in the country.
Bottom Line:
I expected much more from Stone IPA. All I got was a wallop of citrus and hop bitterness and really nothing else.
7) 21st Amendment El Sully (Taste 5)
ABV: 4.8%
Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This sessionable, year-round Mexican-style lager from San Francisco’s 21st Amendment is brewed with Pilsners malt, Vienna malt, Acidulated malt, and flaked barley as well as Magnum and US Goldings hops. It’s known for its clean, crisp, easy-drinking flavor.
Bottom Line:
This is definitely not a bad beer. It’s just exactly what it portrays itself as — a fairly muted, easy-to-drink lager. You don’t have a lot of complex flavors at play.
6) Anchor Steam Beer (Taste 8)
ABV: 4.8%
Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
There are few beers more rooted in the history of California than Anchor Steam Beer. First brewed in 1896 before being re-released in 1971, Anchor Steam Beer’s name is a reference to days when brewers in California didn’t have any refrigeration besides ice and would ferment their beer on rooftops, assuming the foggy cool air would help in the process.
Bottom Line:
This is a unique beer. There’s a ton going on. It’s just not overly flavorful and the finish is a little more bitter than I’d hoped for.
5) Bear Republic Racer 5 (Taste 6)
ABV: 7.5%
Average Price: $12.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Bear Republic’s Racer 5 is a wildly popular West Coast IPA from California. Brewed with crystal malts, wheat, and malted barley, it gets its bright hoppy flavor from the addition of Centennial, Cascade, Chinook, and Columbus hops.
Bottom Line:
Racer 5 is a popular beer and for good reason. It has everything a West Coast IPA fan enjoys. It’s just a little bitter for those not obsessed with the style.
4) Ballast Point Sculpin (Taste 1)
ABV: 7%
Average Price: $13.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Ballast Point Sculpin gets its name from the stinging Sculpin fish. This is a reference to the citrus-driven, bitterly hoppy flavor profile of this hugely popular West Coast IPA.
Bottom Line:
Ballast Point Sculpin is a great example of a West Coast IPA. It ticks all the boxes. Even the “Stinging” hops at the finish don’t take away from the other flavors.
3) Firestone Walker Pivo Pils (Taste 3)
ABV: 5.3%
Average Price: $8.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
When people make lists ranking the best pilsners in the US, Firestone Walker Pivo is usually somewhere on that list. It’s brewed with Pilsner and Carafoam malts and hopped in the kettle with Spalter Select, Tradition, and Saphir hops before being dry-hopped with even more Saphir hops.
Bottom Line:
I’m not surprised Firestone Walker Pivo faired so well. It has a great balance of malts and hops and is crisp and easy to drink any time of year.
2) Societe The Pupil (Taste 7)
ABV: 7.5%
Average Price: $13.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
One of the most highly rated California-made IPAs, Societe The Pupil is brewed with malted wheat and 2-row Pale malt. It gets its fruity, citrus flavor from the addition of Nelson Sauvin, Citra, and Centennial hops.
Bottom Line:
Sometimes California IPAs tend to lean a little too heavily into the bitter, hoppy finish. This isn’t the case with Societe The Pupil. It’s balanced and highly flavorful.
1) Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Taste 2)
ABV: 5.6%
Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the beer that started a revolution. When this citrus and pine-filled pale ale was first released in 1980 it created the American pale ale style that is mimicked by pretty much every brewery in the US that makes a pale ale today.
Bottom Line:
When all was said and done, I wasn’t surprised to see Sierra Nevada Pale Ale end up on top. It’s perfectly balanced between caramel malts and floral hops without much bitterness.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
These final thoughts are different from most blind taste tests because there are multiple different beer styles in the mix. What was clear to me was that, regardless of the beer style, I preferred a beer that was balanced and not overly bitter. This is likely the same for any beer style, but definitely true for the eight beers included in this test.
Still… these are all classics for a reason — you truly can’t go wrong with any of them, depending on your mood.
