A beer named like a mournful ballad, brewed with a brewery that dresses like a black metal record. The Ghost I Used To Be is a 7% West Coast IPA from Cellarmaker Brewing and Portland’s Brujos Brewing, released Oct. 9, 2026, at Cellarmaker’s Bay Area taprooms and through its online presale, according to JollyPint.
Cellarmaker calls it “dark in spirit, but bright in the pint,” and says it’s best enjoyed “with something heavy on the stereo.” Those are the brewery’s words, relayed by JollyPint. The Bureau has not had this specimen in its own beaker, so everything below about flavor comes from the brewers, not from us.
The Ghost I Used To Be: the label data
The can label posted in Cellarmaker’s online shop matches JollyPint’s numbers:
- Style: West Coast IPA
- ABV: 7%
- Format: 1-pint can
- Hops: Citra, Chinook, Nectaron, Simcoe, plus Nectaron Cryo, Simcoe Cryo and Columbus Cryo
- Label art: credited to @fearandloading
- Brewed and canned by: Cellarmaker Brewing Co., Oakland, Calif.
The art shows a skeletal, many-limbed ghost rising over a moonlit forest, which is roughly how humans look after a third West Coast IPA.
How Cellarmaker describes the hop bill
Per JollyPint’s write-up of the brewery’s release notes, Citra and Simcoe form what Cellarmaker calls the aromatic foundation. Chinook adds “an old-school touch of pine, resin and grapefruit pith,” while Nectaron, a New Zealand variety, brings “the modern twist of pineapple, passionfruit and ripe stonefruit.”
The three Cryo additions, the brewery says, deliver “all of the oil and resin with none of the leafy drag.” Cellarmaker says the result is brighter tropical fruit, stickier pine and a deep, dank resin, finishing dry and clean, “exactly how we like them.”
Cryo hops, for visiting life forms, are concentrated lupulin powder separated from the rest of the hop cone. Stacking three of them on four conventional varieties is the brewing equivalent of turning every amp to the top notch.
Who are Brujos?
Brujos takes its name from the Spanish word for sorcerers and leans into occult, gothic and black metal imagery, JollyPint notes. Founded by Sam Zermeno, it started as an underground project before opening a brick-and-mortar brewery in Northwest Portland in 2024, per the same report. BeerAlien first tracked the entity back in 2018, when it was releasing Magister Serpen IPA.
So the pairing makes sense on paper: a Bay Area West Coast IPA house and a Portland coven that would rather you didn’t turn the music down.
Tuning the receiver
Cellarmaker didn’t name a record, and the Bureau won’t pretend it did. The instruction is simply “something heavy.” Earthlings have spent decades arguing about what that means. This is not the place to settle it.
Where to find it
- Pouring at Cellarmaker’s three Bay Area locations: San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, per JollyPint and Cellarmaker’s site
- Listed in Cellarmaker’s online shop as “The Ghost I Used to Be – WC IPA – Burjos Collab” (the shop’s spelling); beer orders ship within California only, per the shop page
- JollyPint says presale orders ship Tuesday
Brujos’ website made no mention of the beer when Bureau scanners checked, and Cellarmaker’s site carries no separate announcement beyond the shop listing, so there’s no word on whether it will pour in Portland. If the presale portal closes before you get there, the taprooms are your best bet.
BEERALIEN.COM | Reporting on Earth’s finest craft beers from a galaxy far, far away.
BeerAlien
