Stone 5th Anniversary IPA

Formerly brewed at Stone Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Escondido, California USA

Sampled at the Friday night (Pre-Atlanta Cask Ale tasting) RB gathering at Twains 2006. Hooray! For KP! The bringer of this brew (thought I’d never have a chance to try it). Pours orange and clear. Initial aroma greats you with hints of oxidation but as you push through you get sticky sweet orange malt and some pine hints (mostly diminished). Again, in the flavor, you can sense some cardboard but dryish hops still linger supported by alcohol notes and big booming malty goodness. Medium body and dryish finish (still some hops there). Well beyond its prime I’m sure, but still a great one to have tried.

Thanks to kp for bringing this gem from his cellar! I expected to search for this one for several more years. Pours a medium orange color with a decent head and enough body in this 4 year old IPA to lace a bit. Muted hop aroma as would be expected, allowing the malt to come through. Earthy malt flavor with some hints of pine. Nice, deeply bitter dry finish, that can only make me imagine what this was like in it’s prime.

This pours a cloudy amber. The aroma is full of dried apricots and a slight pine from the hops. It’s a touch grainy. The malt drops out quickly but bitterness lingers nicely.

(Draft: Stone Brewing Days 2005 at Stuffed Sandwich in San Gabriel, CA) Duvel tulip glass in hand, I walk into Stuffed Sandwich for their Stone Brewing Days 3-day festival, hoping I’d find something cool, but oh my heavens, look what Sam has on tap! I never thought I’d see this in bottle or on draft ever again. Well, actually, I’ve never seen it before, not ever, since this came out just as I was moving out to San Diego, and I had better things on my mind at the time than beer hunting. Anyway, Sam has filled my Duvel glass right to the top, as always. I sip a bit off so that I don’t spill it, and amazingly, the head builds back to the top. I get to my table and sip some more head, and sure enough, here comes the head, continuing to form, beautifully creamy, light tan in color, and just refusing to fade even in the slightest. I have to keep drinking, and only then does the head finally give in and stay at a thin layer, but it leaves a thick, dense foam on the glass for the duration of the session to remember it by. The body is fully cloudy, amber in color, and impossible to see through, even at the edges. The nose is only lightly hoppy, so clearly the hops has softened considerably, which is to be expected for a 4-year old beer. Instead, it’s very earthy and woody, sweet, solidly malty, and certainly oxidized a bit. Similarly, the flavor is malty, earthy, woody, and mushroomy, but there’s also an obvious sweet fruitiness fighting through and holding its own. It’s not hoppy at all, and in fact, it’s only mildly bitter, but that bitterness does show up a bit in the finish. Alcohol isn’t really noticeable to me. Medium "plus" in body, but I think much of that "plus" is due to the aging. With the earthiness, this isn’t a clean beer at this point, and with the mild hoppiness toward the end, the finish isn’t terribly crisp either, but this is an IPA, so who could expect it to be? So clearly this beer is past its prime, and it’s not the same beer it was when fresh four years ago, but unlike many other "old" non-cellarable beers I’ve tried, this is still remarkably drinkable and very enjoyable. True, I enjoy that earthy, mushroomy flavor and aroma, but because of the solid fruitiness, this beer is more than just an oxidized, earthy, mushroomy beer. Still, I have to be fair and say that this beer, four years after being brewed, isn’t as amazing as it apparently was, but I’ve had no problem finishing the entire Duvel glass. As a rating buddy of mine said to me tonight, this is easily the best 4-year old IPA I’ve ever had.

Bottle. Golden-orange in colour, lasting tan head, very nice lace. The aroma was of mild citrus hops, some pine, earthy, with a caramel sweetness. The flavour was of piney hops, orange citrus, malty in the middle (caramel, some light butterscotch). Bitter mouthfeel, medium body, lively carbonation. FInishes with a long lingering bitterness. This has held up fantasticly, Thanks for the beer Larry Pitonka.

Pours neat top, cloudy, orange copper in colour. Aroma of butter due of age and good set of hops. Neat hoppy ale, medium bodied. I wish Stone Brewing brew new batch of this decent ale.

RBSG 05. Very hazy murky pure orange with an ok light beige head which fades a bit. Lots of harsh citrus and pine hop aromas. Very sticky mouthfeel from the malt, but the hops dominate all the way on this one. Flavor is also somewhat harsh and metallic even. The hops have turned it almost grassy with some pine-sol. Harsh finish. Probably a lot better when it was fresh. Im surprised how much hops were still left in this beer though.

Cloudy orange-amber w/ creamy off-white foam. Big hoppy citrus aroma over a firm foundation of caramel, toffee, & butterscotch. Thick, sticky, resiny feel. Flavour is heavily hoppy & bitter but sufficiently balance by the malt. The hops, however, though still aggressive seem to have faded somewhat over time.