There is a specific kind of beer name that sounds cheerful and unthreatening right up until you read the ABV and hop list, and Smiley Eyes falls squarely into that category. North Park Beer Co. and their collaborators at everywhere have built a DDH West Coast IPA that hides real intent behind a name that sounds like it belongs on a children's cereal box.
The hop bill is the giveaway. Freestyle Southern Cross, Freestyle Nelson Sauvin, Riwaka, and Freestyle Rakau SubZero Hop Kief is not a casual assortment, it is the kind of lineup a brewery reaches for when it wants a beer that actually announces itself. At 7.2% ABV, Smiley Eyes delivers ripe apricot, peach ring gummies, and tangy ruby red grapefruit, the sort of flavor combination that manages to be both bright and substantial at the same time, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.
North Park calls it a ray of sunshine in a glass, and given that San Diego is not exactly hurting for actual sunshine, that is a fairly confident claim for a beer to make in a city this saturated with breweries. But West Coast IPAs are practically the house style out here, and North Park has been refining theirs long enough, their flagship Hop-Fu has picked up a World Beer Cup medal three times running, that a confident new release deserves the benefit of the doubt.
This one arrived as part of a trio of collaborations with everywhere, dropping the same week as North Park's Crown Point Pizza Shop celebrated its second anniversary with its own collaboration pizza and a tap takeover featuring beers from half a dozen other breweries. It is the kind of week that suggests North Park does not really believe in doing one thing when five things are available.
Smiley Eyes is available now at North Park's taprooms and for California shipping, and it is worth grabbing before the limited batch smiles its way out the door.