Stone 04.04.04 Vertical Epic Ale

Formerly brewed at Stone Brewing Co.
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Escondido, California USA

Cold 22oz bottle: Pours an egg yolk orange color with some suspended sediment, and a thin layer of ivory bubbles, with the concentration around the edges. Aroma is of nice malts, prominent alcohol, and some grass and fruit. Taste is of bready malt and fruit well blended with grassy bitterness and notes of brown sugar. Oily texture, medium bodied and lightly crisp, with ample carbonation. Ending is lightly sweet with some alcohol burn.

Bomber drank 10/07: Pours a hazy orange with floaties and a white head, alcohol, bananas and other light fruit in the aroma, medium bodied with a crsp ending and medium carbonation, starts and ends lightly bitter.

Hazy yellow color with small lacing type head. Aroma of lemon and flowers. Good semi rich mouthful with nice smooth yeasty/sweet finish.

22oz bottle, O’Briens. Pours a hazy, yellowish-orange color; white head with decent lacing. Dense, candy sugar, overripe yellow fruits, and esters in the aroma; quite generous and soft. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: very chewy, candy sugar and belgian sugar upfront; soft, caramel and yellow fruit and white pepper following; medium, candy sugar and banana finish.

22oz bottle. Light hazy color, spicy aroma, taste like black licorice. Interesting epic.

Date: 03/04/2005
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting, RateBeer SE Gathering, 2005

hazy dark yellow, spicy moldy horse blanket aroma, dry malt flavor with a nice dose of spices, light body, will age help this beer?

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 4/10; Flavor: 3/10; Palate: 4/10; Overall: 7/20
Rating: 1.9/5.0
Score: *+/4
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Bottle from Landseer. Got a bottle from someone else too, a long time ago, don’t remember who, but I’m only drinking it now because Landseer sent me another ;)

Pours a peachy copper honey with a small head. 3.5 years old now, so not too bad in the carbonation department. Aroma is of chemicals, flowers, honey, and melon. At first it was extremely harsh, but as the beer warmed that wore off. Slightly sweet, warm bready and passionfruit flavor. More chemicals. Again, the acetone/acetaldehyde thing fades as the beer warms, but even around 60 degrees it is noticeable and painful to put down. Otherwise, this beer is decent but quite boring, commonplace, and unworthy of a VE title from such a talented brewery. I’ll be interested to see how this will be in 5 years, but I don’t think it will be very good!

22 ounce bottle purchased how the heck should I know where, my records got lost in the cyclone along with the ruby slippers, served a little below cellar temperature from a Dieu du Ciel! tulip. As with the 03 I had last night, the cap comes off with a bit of fizz, and foam fills half the glass, lightly golden-creamy in color and slowly receding atop the translucent, oily golden body, leaving thick lacing.....nose is strongly oxidized, heavily dominated by caramel and sherry, with lime hints apparent but very muted until the beer has opened up a bit (5 minutes); vanilla and almonds also make an appearance, and the cookieish yeast is less prominent than in the 03.....if the lime is barely evident in the nose, it is central in the flavor: a delightful vanilla-lime character dominates, hints of rum and coconut, caramel and moderate dry cookiedough yeast give it a wonderful lightness despite the thick sugariness and really a quite unique overall taste....low carbonation, lightly bitter/tart at the finish, and only slightly on the thin side, this is really quite excellent and the aging really doesn’t seem to have hurt things, though not having had it fresh I can’t say for certain. Quite impressive and distinctive.