Two hop mavens have teamed up on a collaboration that requires barrel-aged IPA’s. A bit of a turn around from Stone Brewing Co. and Sierra Nevada who have been educating the beer buying public about freshness and “enjoying by” IPA’s for quite some time. The result is NXS IPA a blend of fresh hop IPAs, plus some barrel-aged IPAs.
If you like carrot cake
I appreciate the base beer choice by Stone and their collaborative partners. Past that I really don’t know. Three of those ingredients are sugar filled and the other might not have a chance to balance the proceedings. Oh and beet juice? And lacto?
Ruin2
Thirteen years of Ruination and now there has been a reformulation from Stone Brewing. New Hops (Citra, Simcoe and Azacca) added alongside Magnum, Nugget and Centennial.
Plus you get the “Enjoy by date” on the neck of either the 12oz or 22oz bottle.
Hopefully, the new version has more nuance to it and isn’t as unbalanced as the old Ruination. Which to my mind was a one note attack of bitterness.
Gluten Low
To be completely clear, this is not a gluten-free beer. I believe that Stone is using a similar system to that of Widmer and the Omission series of beers where the gluten is stripped out later. Not brewed without gluten. Either way, the fact that Lemondrop and El Dorado hops are being used should be enough to get anyone, regardless of dietary needs, to check this out. I have been hard on Stone in past years for falling into a rut with their mainline IPA’s but they have done good work with the Enjoy By series and their Liberty Station brews are interesting and fun. 2015 might be a mini-revival for the brand in my eyes. And I will be looking for this beer.
UPDATE – If you can withstand a little bit of gluten, then this might be your IPA. And if you are gluten tolerant, then it might become an alternative, along with Go To Session IPA, to the massive hop bombs that are in the regular Stone line-up. This is a mighty hoppy beer. But it is also subtle. There are grape notes and a bit of peppery rye type spice in here. The bitterness really lingers on the palate but is quite nice. And big plus, it doesn’t have the Tofurky curse that some gluten free beers have where you know they had to substitute, and it just doesn’t match up. Good work.
#LABW6 – But this is at the SAME time – Tuesday the 23rd
Your daily “alternate” L.A. Beer Week event source is right here. I’ve already posted about the events that have piqued my interest but there is a wealth of events each day so here is the pick for Tuesday. It’s a whopper.
Starting at the ungodly hour of 11am, Stone in Pasadena will be digging deep into the VE archives….
Beers on draft include:
Stone 03.03.03 Vertical Epic Ale (pours only)
Stone 04.04.04 Vertical Epic Ale (pours only)
Stone 05.05.05 Vertical Epic Ale (pours only)
Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic Ale (pours only)
Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale aged in Red Wine Barrels
Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale
Stone 12.12.12 Vertical Epic Ale
IPA Taste Test – Stone Edition
Whilst wandering through my Trader Joe’s, I stopped at the “orphan” bottles and cans section of the beer aisle and I saw a “classic” Stone IPA right next to the newer Go To Session IPA. Immediately, I thought, it was time for a taste test. How did the two compare. Is there a stylistic shift or are they just variations on a theme?
Classic IPA
Pours clear and fizzy orange. Compared to the Go To, it has less head to it. Pine/woodsy aroma and a strong punch of bitterness. There is some notes of citrus and fruit punch in there as well which fades as the beer warms and more of a spicy rye quality becomes more evident. A bit too astringent for me after a strong start.
Go To Session IPA
Pours a hazy yellow color. Oddly no “enjoy by” date on this bottle. Lighter tangerine aroma here. Much softer and a little more floral/ soapy notes here. Both have lingering hop presence to them. Just that this fades out quicker. A little watery as well.
Verdict – Neither have much malt presence to them. My preference for lighter hands on IPAs leads me to Go To but in the end the harshness of the Classic loses the battle more than Go To wins it.
Review – Unapologetic IPA
One of my favorite breweries, Beachwood has joined the growing list of Stone collaborators to create an Unapologetic IPA along with third partner, Heretic Brewing.
This IPA that was kindly provided to me by Stone pours a bright and cheerful orange. The first taste that comes through is Concord grape. Grape Ne-Hi to be exact. Then a heavy bitterness hangs like a shroud.
The aroma is great on this one. Zippy and filled with grape notes. But that promising start is undone by the heaviness. There is just an astringency that makes this below average. And then the cat pee notes kick in a little too harshly as well. And since these are such new hops. Belma? Yakima #’s without catchy names? I don’t really know what is causing the high points or the low.
This just verifies that the Stone IPA palate is not mine. That is no knock on Stone. Their Hophead fans are legion, so they are playing to their customer base for sure. And I know they have a session IPA out there that is more in line with my delicate sensibilities but I would have liked to see less hops here. Toned down the ABV a skosh as well.
All apologies but this IPA is not for me.
Review – 2 from Stone Brewing
First off, I am not even going to try to spell the name of the new series of beers from Stone. Them’s the breaks when you choose a name like StocheeheenieWTF. But I will try the beer. The first in the series was the Grapefruit slam that I thought worked as a beer more than the marketing. But I am a sucker for grapefruit and it worked well with the hops. Now they have gone to the Belgian Quad and used Triticale which reliable Wikipedia (and other sources) describe as, “….a hybrid of wheat and rye first bred in laboratories during the late 19th century.”
This beer was strange. Not easy to drink. It was sharp with an astringency to it that made me pucker, even though it wasn’t sour at all. It also tasted thin. I expect Quads to have a little heft to them. Not viscous, per se, but have a solid malty backbone to lean against and this did not have it. Their was also a lack of spice to it and it had more of a Belgian strong ale straightforwardness to it. I couldn’t finish this one, to be honest. I poured out a solid half a glass. It did work better with the dessert than the main course in my testing but I think that was the sweetness of the fruit crumble that balanced out the strange taste that I will attribute to the Triticale or the yeast.
The second beer was the latest Enjoy By, with the patriotic date of 7/4/14 on it.
Needless to say this is bitter. And a little less fruity than past incarnations that I remember. But it certainly is crisper and more direct than the usual Stone hop bombs. There is mango and pineapple notes followed by a dankness and heaviness as the beer warms up and hits the back of the palate. It certainly sticks around as well. Not many scrubbing bubbles. And at over 9% abv, this is probably more a Triple or Imperial IPA depending on your taxonomic leanings. There is a bit of acrid bitterness but the ABV doesn’t heat you up. But I wouldn’t put someone in charge of the 4th of July grill who has had one of these. My personal palate would have liked a less heavy dankness and a brighter fruit note but I am not like most Stone fans so this is probably more in line with their tastes than mine.
Review – Collective Distortion IPA from Stone
In recent years, I have become more fond of the Stone Collaborations then there core line-up. They can get a little too zany and pump up ingredients that should be bit players when simplicity might work better. But their experimentation is a welcome switch from their usual flavor profile. And though I was not a fan of WootStout or the R&R Coconut IPA, I liked that they were enlisting home brewers of both the non-celebrity and celebrity types in their creations.
And the latter continues with a musical (String Cheese Incidient / Alice Cooper) themed collaboration that adds a reliable hop like Nugget with somewhat newer varietal Comet and Calypso with dry-hopping of Vic’s Secret, a new Australian hop. Then they added in coriander and elderberries.
That is the backstory, now here is the review…
The “CD” pours a bright and clear orange. Not much of a head to it. Nice and bubbly looking though. The smell is a bit non-descript with a hint of soapiness to it. The first flavor that I get is grape. Concord grape. Grape jelly grape. Then there is a really harsh bitterness that fades into a currant note. To the point where I Googled elderberry to see if that was what I was tasting. After a few sips this bitterness coats the tongue and the mouth and the grape notes fade to the back and one is left with the harshness only. There is also an astringent and wood pairing of notes as well. The former adds to the debilitating bitterness and the former tries to perk things up without much success.
I don’t know if it was the mix of hops or the elderberry and coriander or the combination of all three but this is just too much and it becomes oppressive tasting.
2 out of 3
I have not been a big fan of Stone hop bombs. Probably a palate thing on my part. They just seem muddled to me. Whereas their GoTo Session and Enjoy By seem simpler and tastier. But this collaboration has me intrigued because it brings three distinct brewers together. Plus I think the world of Julian Shrago of Beachwood, so I will be getting this just for his 1/3 contribution.
