Four Brewers: Craft Beer and Homebrew · John Holzer, Greg Nagel, Joe Senigaglia, Jason Harris

364: The Ship Is Going Down!

May 31, 2024·1 hr·5 clips

Ballast Point sold for $1 billion in 2015, but now it's barely existing—what went wrong?

This episode is a retrospective on Ballast Point Brewing Company, hosted by Jon Holzer, Jason Harris, Greg Daigle, and Joe Senegalia. The hosts taste and discuss several Ballast Point beers while tracing the brewery's history from its influential peak to its diminished state in 2024. They begin with the California Kolsch, the brewery's first beer to pay the bills, originally marketed as a pale ale. The hosts taste Ballast Point Speedboat, a lime and salt blonde ale that some find overly sweet and lacking fresh lime character. The classic Session IPA, Grunion, presents strong off-flavors of diacetyl and onion, which the hosts attribute to old age or poor mosaic hops. The hosts share personal memories of Sculpin IPA, a legendary beer that once drove trades for beers like Heady Topper and Zombie Dust. Ballast Point's history includes founding from Homebrew Mart in 1992 by Jack White and award-winning homebrewer Yuseff Cherney. A key turning point was winning Champion Small Brewery at the 2010 World Beer Cup, leading to massive expansion. The brewery opened a large destination facility in Miramar in 2014 and sold to Constellation Brands for one billion dollars in 2015. Post-buyout, the brand became known for numerous flavored Sculpin variants like grapefruit, habanero, pineapple, and a hazy version. The hosts find their cans of regular Sculpin IPA to be stale, with muted hops and strong bitterness, likely from warm storage. They note the company opened and subsequently closed a production facility in Virginia and a brewpub in Chicago's West Loop. Jason Harris was once the top user on Untappd for Sculpin check-ins before being surpassed by a user in Japan. The hosts recall Ballast Point's early double IPA, Dorado, from 1998, and its pioneering role in the Session IPA style with Grunion. The tone is conversational and nostalgic, blending beer tasting with informal historical commentary and personal anecdotes. Craft beer enthusiasts interested in industry history and the rise and fall of major brands would enjoy this episode. Listeners seeking only positive beer reviews or those unfamiliar with Ballast Point's legacy might find it less engaging.

As heard by us

A blunt Ballast Point retrospective with shelf-age suspicion, history, and enough skepticism to keep it moving.

The episode treats Ballast Point as more than a nostalgia stop, moving from the brewery's rise into its less certain present without turning stiff or archival.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Ballast Point story, from influential brewery to mostly a brand now.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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