Brewed alongside good friends at Pellicle, one of the UK's leading voices devoted to exploring beer, wine, cider, food and travel.

Nostalgia was a key ingredient when coming up with this recipe - trying to remind us all of a simpler, and dare we say it, better time? However, the sun always shines wherever a West Coast IPA is, and here we have, Always Trust the Optimist.

In fact, it would probably be better described as an ‘American IPA’ but as Matt explored in Pellicle’s guide to IPA from earlier this year, that term has become rather ambiguous of late, so Track have settled with ‘West Coast’. This is so that anyone can pick up a can and know that the beer inside is packed with bold citrus and pine aromas, shored up by a robust malt character that gives this style its classic bittersweet character.

And trust us when we say it’s bitter. We’re talking 70 IBUs here, coming from Citra, Chinook Simcoe, and whole-flower Centennial. Even better than that, there is a smattering of Vienna—and, yes—Crystal malt alongside Track’s usual pilsner malt base. These speciality malts will give this beer the correct amount of sweetness to balance all of those zesty hop aromatics. Delicious.