Don’t Be Scared…

…away by the last ingredient listed in the latest Stone Brewing One Batch Dispatch offering, Down the Rabbit Hole.

“Our Innovation Brewer Fritzi Lara Lino concocted this creation along with our Small Batch team using coffee, chocolate, strawberry… and mushrooms.”

A Cold Stone

OSide – Now I love shortening names and utilizing acronyms as much as many ‘Mericans but I might have steered clear of that as a name for a foray into Cold IPA.  But back to the beer, I am intrigued as to how Stone Brewing will handle the Cold IPA craze in their latest One Batch Dispatch.

Christmas Beer Review – Gimme Yule, Gimme Fire from Stone

Christmas beers have been thoroughly invaded by IPAs but the holiday still brings wintry styles such as the bock beer. Stone Brewing has a new One Batch Dispatch holiday bock.

Here is my take on Gimme Yule, Gimme Fire: It is nice and malty. Very Germanic. The barrel char is not coming through in the typical Stone mega proportions. I was expecting ash and charcoal and whiskey but this is a pleasant little bock that does not taste 9% at all with a touch of sweetness to it. If it was labeled a Christmas bock, I would probably have viewed it in higher esteem.

Violet

You will not see a lot of milkshake on this blog but this one from Stone Brewing has extra interest behind it…

“Stone Violetta Iris Mikshake IPA This beer is named for a breast cancer survivor Violetta Iris Dirkmaat, the mother-in-law of our Senior Manager of Brewing & Innovation Steve Gonzalez. It’s pleasantly sweet (like her!) with an unexpected combination of vanilla, blood orange and raspberry, and a lesser-known New Zealand hop variety called Moutere. Raise a glass of this rose-colored beer to the strength of survivors, and Violeta’s motto: Volharden.”

Travel Writing

Stone has a new One Batch Dispatch out now, Travelogue Triple IPA. 

This is a big one, as they describe, “Our trek started with Amarillo hops – a favorite from Stone history that we’ve fallen in love with all over again – combined with Loral and Mosaic. Meanwhile, we used flaked wheat and oats, which you’d typically see used in a hazy beer, but filtered this one for a classic, bright appearance. 

That all went according to plan. But the surprise came when this beer that we expected to be a double IPA, came out at a massive 10.7% ABV. Despite the big alcohol content, this beer is incredibly smooth, letting the intense tropical & citrus notes shine with a glorious lingering hoppiness.”