Beer Review: El Segundo Brewing Company Broken Skull IPA

Brewery: El Segundo Brewing Company
Beer: Steve Austin’s Broken Skull IPA
Style: American IPA
ABV: 6.7%
Character: Brewed with Citra, Chinook and Cascade hops
Ratings: BA: 87 | Untappd: 3.91
Metal Connection: CANNIBAL CORPSE – Every Bone Broken

BeerMetalDude Rating: 4.75/5

Glass Shatters, heavy Rock guitars and drums kick in like a total bad ass, You suddenly want to shotgun a beer, throw your middle fingers high in the air, and give a Stone Cold Stunner to the nearest person to you. Or… maybe that’s just me. I have been a life long wrestling fan, so I am one person who associates certain things with wrestling. Have you eve been to, let’s  say, a restaurant, and you hear the server or bartender drop a glass? Have you ever just started humming the Stone Cold Steve Austin theme song? I know I have.

Why all this wrestling talk, you ask. Well, El Segundo Brewing Company teamed up with the legendary wrestler, Steve Austin and collaborated on this beer, Broken Skull IPA. It has been a year round offering from the brewery, available in kegs and in 22 oz. bomber bottles. I have to give a shut out and big thanks to my Cali connection, Jorge Espinoza of animebeers.com for hooking me up with this bottle for review.

The fact that it was a collaboration with one of the most charismatic wrestlers of our time, I was expecting a bit more to the label on this beer, but then again just having Steve Austin’s name on the bottle, I’m sure is an awesome selling point. The label is very simple. The main color is in eggshell with a large blue circle. Big brewery logo draped across the top, the name of the beer in big bold stone rock letters. There is a cracked skull as the main drawing on here that is similar to the skulls Stone Cold would use throughout his WWE career. The circle is outlined in a brownish-red colored barbed-wire. A nice little rattlesnake sits on top of the brewery logo, in tribute to The Rattlesnake himself. Simple, to the point, says what it needs to, but I just figured that a beer collaborated with the Texas Rattlesnake would have had a lot of kick ass shit all over the label.

Alright, let’s get down to business here. The aroma was full of wonderful hop characters. A big bouquet of hops. Danky resinous hops are overpowering with a great blend of citrus orange, grapefruit, herbal, floral, piney, and grassy hops. I’m telling you, they were all there. A small hint of caramel, and a good amount of biscuit bread sits behind all the hops. There is a lingering aroma of danky resinous hops and biscuit bread.

Hops galore took over the palate, just like the nose. Dank resinous hops again are dominant with all the other hop characters blended within. Citrus orange, grapefruit, some lemon peel mixed well with a floral, spicy herbal, piney, and grassy taste. The taste brings out a few more notes than the aroma such as mango, strawberry, and honey. Biscuit bread and light caramel are picked up towards the end of each swill. The aftertaste is just a big blend of hop characters and biscuit bread.

The body was a heavy medium in thickness. Moderate carbonation is present with a nice sting to the palate. The overall mouthfeel was oily and slick with a mouth coating oily finish.

Seriously, what is there not to love bout this beer. A kick ass brewery and an even more kick ass wrestler delivered a big bottle of whoop ass here with Broken Skull. This beer was made for fans of the classic style IPA. This is not “juice” nor did these folks name the beer after some fuckin’ vegetable. If you are looking for a great take on a West Coast IPA, then look no further than this “Bad Boy” (Recently I was told on Facebook that referring to a beer as a Bad Boy is not cool or hip with the kids these days -Aaron) I personally love to see collaborations with people not in the beer industry, you know, celebrities, bands, or just plain ol’ public figures. I dream up of recipes or ideas all the time, but since I am not a brewer, I can only hope that one day someone wants to collaborate with me on a brew. I know there are some that see these breweries going after the obvious cash cow, but as with everything in life, Haters will be haters, no matter what. So, now stop what you are doing, shut the Hell up, and crack open a bottle of Broken Skull or be a complete pussy. That’s the bottom line cause BeerMetalDude said so!

Metal Connection: One of the only underground Death Metal act who can live off of their music is none other than the gore mongers, Cannibal Corpse. This band has graced this site several times, and here we have them again. The full length album, Gallery of Suicide was released in 1998, and was only the second album to feature George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher or as I drunkenly call him “Fishgrinder” on vocals. For me, this was the album that this new form of the band came into it’s own. Vile, the previous album seemed rushed and Fisher also seemed like he wasn’t quite there yet with the C.C. style of Death Metal. Gallery of Suicide has a bevy of classic songs that I fuckin’ love like “I Will Kill You”, “Disposal of the Body”, “Sentenced to Burn”, or “Stabbed in the Throat” among others.

With this beer being named Broken Skull, and having a connection with Stone Cold Steve Austin, who would rather kick ass, batter and bruise your body first, before anything else, I thought the song “Every Bone Broken” was an appropriately titled song for this Metal Connection. This song is heavy, and has some pretty groovy riffs laid down by the duo of Jack Owen and Pat O’Brien. The sick finger picking style of Alex Webster on bass can be heard throughout this track. Paul Mazurkiewicz’s drumming has become a permanent staple with Cannibal Corpse’s music. Of course there is a huge amount of people out there who discarded this band after original vocalist, Chris Barnes left the band after The Bleeding album, but I personally have accepted both versions of the band, and each has their own unique high point qualities. Just like with beer, I like to find the good before the bad.

The snapping and cracking of skeletal remains
The pleasure of devouring decomposed flesh
The feeling of power from crushing your skull
The stench of decay overwhelming my brain