This is how I roll at the beach: I start with a long morning surf session where I spend most of the time trying not to drown, followed by marathon games of horse shoes and corn hole interspersed with shorter bursts of surfing throughout the day. Dinner, then drinking games. It’s a demanding day. A demanding day that demands an easy drinking beer, so usually I try to find the lowest ABV lager at the beer store, sacrificing quality for quantity. But during this particular beach trip to Folly, just off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, I was staring at the beer fridge in Bert’s, a 24-hour market that somehow successfully combines high end fare like craft beer and an olive bar with low end fare like $1 corn dogs, and I couldn’t resist this can of Hopart, from Charleston-based Coast Brewing.
This is a big IPA in a big boy can. This is not beach beer. It’s not a lager or golden ale, it’s not a low ABV beer. It doesn’t exactly go down easy, which is another way of saying “it has flavor.” The fact that it comes in four packs, and not six packs, tells you straight up that it’s not an easy-drinking beach beer.
But look at that can!
I expected a juicy modern IPA, but it’s not as fruity as most of its contemporary IPA counterparts. It actually has a solid malt presence, is zesty as hell, but also still comes across as creamy. Hopart pushes 8%ABV, which is borderline double IPA territory. And it’s downright suicidal to drink can after can of a high ABV IPA in the sun all day. But day-drinking is about breaking the rules, and sometimes, the rules of day-drinking itself need to be broken. And if my horse shoes game is any indication (I was throwing ringers left and right), I might adopt Coast’s Hopart as my go-to beach beer from here on out.
