Beer of the Week: Pursuing Hoppiness

I recently shared how much I enjoy brewery anniversaries and the specialty beers crafted to fuel such celebrations. Only a few weeks later, I find myself featuring yet another birthday beer, and not only is it true to the style of the hop-bomb factory from which it hails, but it carries with it a secondary meaning that is beyond special. Allow me to go back in time to the summer of 2015, when I first communicated with Cameron Ball, an aspiring brewery owner looking to site his passion project, Helix Brewing, in an industrial area of his hometown of La Mesa. While I’d heard the story of a dreamer balancing the demands of their day job with an insatiable drive to turn their homebrewing passion into a legitimate brick-and-mortar business, there was something different about Ball. He clearly knew his stuff and how to brew – particularly when it came to IPAs – but he had a lot more going for him and a personality unlike many brewers I’d met…or have since come to know. A combination of hippie, outdoorsman, global gadabout and good-vibes proponent, Ball has hobbies that range well beyond fermentation. Not only that, he actually pursues them. That’s no small feat for a brewery owner with a full-time job, but he gets by with help from the chosen family he’s built at Helix. As he prepares to celebrate 10 years in the beer biz, he’s also preparing to take a monster border-to-border trek from Canada to Mexico. The latter is an endeavor covertly referenced in the name of this week’s featured beer, Pursuing Hoppiness. A West Coast IPA – no surprise there considering it’s the style that’s won Helix the most fans over the past decade – it will debut tomorrow at noon at the kickoff of Helix’s non-ticketed (just show up and have fun) anniversary celebration; a commemorative glass and music-accompanied fete will double as a going-away party for Ball and his wife before they hit the old dusty trail. Packed with popular varietals, bringing about vibrant notes of Satsuma orange and peach, plus hints of pine and cannabis, it’s a tasty beer that will provide a nice sendoff for the guy who created it as well as a homey, communal brewery many a newcomer-turned-regular have fallen in love with over the years.

Back before I signed the lease for Helix, I was at a junction in life as a recent engineering grad. One path was to continue working the engineering day job with hopes to start a brewery and pursue my passion of making beer. I chose to start Helix and don’t regret it one bit! The other path I could have chosen was to quit the day job and thru-hike all 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. This hike wasn’t popular back then but now it is. Well, after 10 years of owning and operating Helix, I revisited this bucket list item and told myself there is no better time to live than the present. So, my wife and I applied for PCT Southbound permits last fall and found out in January that we got them! Now the hard part, how to put the working part of life aside to pursue individual dreams we’ve had since graduating college. With a solid team at Helix, I know I can do it. So, two days after our 10-year anniversary party, I’ll fly to the Canadian border to start the 2,650-mile backpacking trip home with my wife. (Technically we have to hike 30 miles north before we can start heading south, but those miles are drops in the bucket.) There is something special about ‘walking home’ that feels natural to us with this sobo (southbound) hike compared to the northbound hike most PCT thru-hikers follow. With a nobo hike we would be walking further away from home every day and further away from the people we love. The sobo hike will remind us that each day we are getting closer to those we love and those who support us. The ability to be able to place ourselves in nature together with the simple objective of hiking, eating, drinking many beers and being 100% present with one another represents a pursuit of happiness that plays into the name of our anniversary beer, Pursuing Hoppiness. I am always pursing the fun adventure that makes me happy in life, because I never know what the next day will bring. This IPA brings back the robust old-school hops that still hit: Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe and Strata, a newer dank favorite over the years. Helix is known for its hoppy IPAs, so I’m giving people what they love with this super loaded West Coast IPA. I’ll still be in close touch with the Helix team while I am on-trail. Some people ask me how I can get away from the brewery for this long but I’ve gone on multi-month trips to Southeast Asia in the past and my team handled it perfectly well. Helix is a tight-knit family. They have my back and I have theirs. My wife and I will need to hike around 30 miles per-day every day to make it home before the snow. If Helix runs out of beer I will have to hitch home for two weeks to brew and cellar before hitching back to the trail to pick up where I left off, and hike much faster after that! It’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that many dream of. I’m a guy who also dreams, but the best part of a dream is when it becomes reality. So here’s to Pursuing Hoppiness, which will be tapped at our combo 10-year anniversary and PCT sendoff party. Without the supportive, stoked people who drink our beer, Helix wouldn’t be where it is today, so this anniversary party is for everyone who’s ever enjoyed our beers over the years as a thank-you for allowing us to pursue our happiness…and hoppiness.”

Cameron Ball, Owner & Head Brewer, Helix Brewing / Sourworx

Helix Brewing is located at 8101 Commercial Street in La Mesa