Pellicle x Siren - West Coast Takeover

West Coast IPA is Pellicle bossman Matthew Curtis’ favourite beer style, and it just so happens to be one of mine too. That clarity, that bitterness—that chewy candy sugar finish. West Coast IPA is one of the beer world’s most enduring modern styles for a reason, combining moreish drinkability with a complex flavour profile that makes the hops used within it shine.

To celebrate our fifth birthday this month, we made not one, but two West Coast IPAs. Optimism Forever is a DDH West Coast IPA made in collaboration with Track in Manchester, Pellicle’s hometown, and Together We Will Devour the Very Gods is a West Coast double red IPA with Cloudwater and Elusive. Both beers are a triumph, even though I do say so myself. Optimism Forever is a masterclass in clarity and finesse, with a big resnous oomph at the end. A super modern, DDH West Coast IPA using a ultra pale, pilsner malt base, this beer features lashings of Strata, Idaho 7 and Nelson Sauvin hops, delivering precise flavours of peach, passionfruit, gooseberry and white grape. 

We Will Devour The Very Gods is a double red IPA, made to celebrate not just the bitterness of the hops, but the satiating sweetness and lightly caramelised flavours of the malt. For this birthday beer we asked a very simple question: what would it taste like if we combined Cloudwater’s Crystallography DIPA with Elusive’s Double Sunset Oregon Trail? The answer is a monstrous red double IPA built to devour the very gods! Expect mountains of Simcoe, C-hops and Ahtanum delivering a massive citrus hit, carefully balanced with oodles of lovely malt. 

Fancy trying them? You can! Grab one of our Siren x Pellicle West Coast Takeover boxes right now.

BUY THE BOX

That’s the amazing thing about West Coast IPA as a style, it can be adapted to suit a brewer’s own intuition, and moulded to fit all manner of creative whims. There are some parameters to work within, of course, but in 2024, rather than chasing extreme bitterness like the IBU wars of the early 2000s, breweries are looking for ways to make their beer more delicious, more interesting, and more nuanced. Can a West Coast IPA still slap you in the face with bitterness? Of course—I’d be mad if it didn’t. But the goal is no longer to make beer that is only just palatable for the sake of a unit of measurement. The goal is to make something beautiful.

There are not many things on the planet that look quite as bewitching as a crystal clear, deeply-hued glass of West Coast IPA. To me, that glass of luminous beer, glassy as a Glacier Mint, is Friday afternoon. It is suns-out guns-out. It is the first day of a bank holiday, the part of a road trip where you’re settled in and enjoying the tunes. It is comfort and low key excitement at the same time. There is something meaningful to me about how bold a West Coast IPA tastes, and how well it conveys both hop and malt aromas as you lift the beer to your face. They aren’t session beers, but they can be extremely easy to drink if you’ve got a taste for them. Maybe that’s why I like them—they are a loud laugh in a quiet beer garden, a moment of total enjoyment unsullied by thoughts of what anyone thinks. Are they cool? Are they dated? Neither. A West Coast IPA is a stone cold classic.

Oregon Trail by Elusive Brewing is an exceptional example of what a West Coast IPA in 2024 can be. All at once it is stoically classic, adhering to all the proper West Coast IPA protocols, but there’s something about its demeanour that is modern—the perfectly balanced malt profile, perhaps, or the lasting tingle of pine sap bitterness lingering deliciously rather than corrosively as so many West Coast IPAs of the past seemed to. Wiper & True’s collaboration with Siren, their West Coast Pils, is a combination of my two favourite styles. What could be nicer for me? A crisp, smashable pils with the hop resonance and refreshing bitterness of a West Coast IPA—a real example of where the style can still go. In a world where beers can be as outlandish as their recipe-maker’s dreams, it’s heartwarming to me that people still want to make beers that just taste like really delicious beer—and that people still want to drink them.

This brings me back to my original point. It is Pellicle’s fifth birthday month, and that’s a huge achievement for us. It marks five years of the best beer writing in the world (I’m saying that, you can quote me) published independently in the UK. Every single writer, illustrator, and photographer commissioned by Pellicle is paid, and we pride ourselves on running a magazine that is free to read, with absolutely no paywalls. We can only do this thanks to the support of our readers, Patreons, Pro-Patreons like Siren, and our brilliant sponsors Loughran Brewers Select. In a world where online writing is being automated before our very eyes, and devalued by clickbait and advertorials, we are incredibly proud to hold Pellicle up to a higher standard where creativity, talent, and passion reins. Perhaps an archaic standard, but it’s our vision and our mission to publish each story to be as good as the last. All killer, no filler. All West Coasts, no drainpours. We’re so glad that thousands of people agree with us that good writing matters, and visit our site each week to read our latest stories, and we’re very grateful to the growing number of Patreon supporters who put their hard-earned cash aside each month to support our publication. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. This matters to us, and we’re glad it matters to you too. 

If you’d like to become a Patron of the Pellicle arts, visit our Patreon page.

Here’s to the next five years of Pellicle, and to the infinite appeal of West Coast IPA.

Optimism Forever!

Katie Mather, Associate Editor—Pellicle

 Get your Siren x Pellicle West Coast Takeover box now!

In the box:

1 x Siren Just Because 440ml – 7% Modern West Coast IPA
1 x Elusive x Cloudwater x Pellicle 440ml – 8% Red West Coast DIPA
1 x Elusive Oregon Trail 440ml – WCIPA 5.8%
1 x Redwillow Shameless 440ml – WCIPA 5.9%
1 x Track x Pellicle Optimism Forever 440ml – 7% DDH WCIPA
1 x Two Flints Slinger 440ml - 5.6% West Coast Pale Ale
1 x Wiper & True x Siren 440ml – 5.8% West Coast Pils
1 x Siren Short Story Long 440ml – 5% Cali Pale Ale