I wrote a story for Vox Orbis about Santa Barbara’s brewing culture and if there really is such a thing as a “Central Coast Beer.” tl;dr: Maybe so, Maybe no!
“There’s definitely a West Coast style,” says Josh Ellis, owner and head brewer at M. Special brewery, one of the many new breweries to pop up in Santa Barbara county in the last year. “It would be an IPA that finishes drier, has less of a malt backbone, less of a caramel flavor. it’s really about a beer that profiles hops, beginning, middle, and end.”