Ralph
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2005
- Messages
- 257
A good friend came down from Massachusetts with some 22 oz Stone brews that are not available to me in Connecticut. I have been dying to try them for since I first heard of their style of brewing.
We first tried the 8th Anniversary Ale, which was an extremely malty brown ale that should have been right up my alley, but it was rather bland and could have used a hop infusion. 7.8% ABV. The 9th Anniversary Ale comes out next month and will be made with a different recipe. We were smoking a Quai D'Orsay Corona which should not have overpowered the beer, but did only because of the beers blandness.
The second beer we tried was the Vertical Epic. This Belgain style ale is bottle conditioned and will age in the bottle. After tasting the first bottle, I know I will not be able to let the second one age. This is a great Belgian with fruity malty flavors and a nice blast of hops on the finish. 8.5% ABV. Better yet, if you are a homebrewer, the recipie is on their website. We chose a Vegas Robaina Don Alejandro to go with this one and they were great together.
I have yet to try the Ruination IPA which has over 100 International Bitterness Units (IBU) as well as the Double Bastard Ale which claims to have a classified IBU rating!
Stone does a great job marketing their product and the bottles have entertaining and near-hysterical descriptions of the beers on the bottle that usually go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with beer!
Here's the back of the Double Bastard bottle for giggles.
http://www.arrogantbastard.com/doublebastard/2004/double.gif
Now if we could just get the beers to Connecticut!
We first tried the 8th Anniversary Ale, which was an extremely malty brown ale that should have been right up my alley, but it was rather bland and could have used a hop infusion. 7.8% ABV. The 9th Anniversary Ale comes out next month and will be made with a different recipe. We were smoking a Quai D'Orsay Corona which should not have overpowered the beer, but did only because of the beers blandness.
The second beer we tried was the Vertical Epic. This Belgain style ale is bottle conditioned and will age in the bottle. After tasting the first bottle, I know I will not be able to let the second one age. This is a great Belgian with fruity malty flavors and a nice blast of hops on the finish. 8.5% ABV. Better yet, if you are a homebrewer, the recipie is on their website. We chose a Vegas Robaina Don Alejandro to go with this one and they were great together.
I have yet to try the Ruination IPA which has over 100 International Bitterness Units (IBU) as well as the Double Bastard Ale which claims to have a classified IBU rating!
Stone does a great job marketing their product and the bottles have entertaining and near-hysterical descriptions of the beers on the bottle that usually go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with beer!
Here's the back of the Double Bastard bottle for giggles.
http://www.arrogantbastard.com/doublebastard/2004/double.gif
Now if we could just get the beers to Connecticut!
