Stone India Pale Ale (IPA)

Brewed by Stone Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Escondido, California USA

12 oz bottle from Premier Gourmet in Buffalo, served in an English pint glass. Pours a slightly hazy golden colour with a small white head that fades quickly leaving slight lace. Aroma is pungent high-alpha hops: big citrus dripping with pine resin. Notes of biscuit malts are also present, but subservient to hops. Flavour begins with moderate malt sweetness, but hops quickly take over, building towards a big grapefruit finish that is intensely bitter. Light in body with a dry texture and soft carbonation. Finish is mildly astringent. Overall, an intensely hoppy, intensely bitter IPA. While I enjoy big IPAs, this one is one-dimensional: malts are sparse and have virtually no depth. Inadequate for such enormous hops. Even the hops are quite simple: a more complex blend would have made for a much better beer. 2010-03-08

Serving: 22 oz. bottle from Total Wine Sterling. It pours a nice light amber color with a sizeable, pillowy, off-white head. The head is very lasting and it leaves nice sheets of lacing all the way down the glass. The nose is full of herbal, floral, and citrus hop notes. The flavor is solidly bitter as you would expect. The herbal and citric qualities take center stage in the flavor profile. The malt side of things is almost nowhere to be found. Medium to medium-light in body with medium carbonation and a lengthy, bitter finish. Overall this is one solid IPA and definitely one everybody should try.

Bottle. Hazy yellow body with a large bubbly white head. Aroma is light hops, grapefruit, pine and fruit. Flavor is tons of hops, firfruit and grapefruit. It has a long lasting bitter aftertaste.

Bottle from Kris Wines, London. A hazy amber affair with a terrific pillowy white head. Earthy, piney hop packed aroma and flavour with bags of tropical fruit notes. Great balance and a poised bitter finish. Top notch.

12 ounce bottle a dark gold pour white head. A big floral hop aroma taste of citrus, floral A pleasent bitter hop finish

Bottle, shared with hobbersr and Cole. Ours clear amber, medium head, spotty lacing. Nose is super grassy, and frankly really smells like pot! Plenty of spicy, piney hops, notes of anise, and there is malt lurking in the background as well. Flavors of pot, very mild malt, pine resin, simple bitter finish.

Beer #4 of IPA night in good old Lethbridge AB. I brought this one back from Marcus Foods in Whitefish MT. Pours a pale yellow with a small white head. The aroma is like sticking your face into a big old bag o’ weed. These hops really have an identity crisis. They see what their cousin is doing and they really want to join in. Wow this tastes like weed too. Herbaceous, citric, woodsy... just like good reefer. It really tastes like bong water... Again, in a good way. Very, very nice.

Very hoppy smell, distinct hops from pacific north west. Nice head, pretty good lacing too. Fairly clear, slightly reddish brownish yellowish. Too clear. Can’t really taste anything other than hops in there, no malt flavour to be had. Not much else in the palate either, just a hops blast. I like it fine, but it’s more like a drink to float hops in to drink thier favorite hops strains. It’s just too thin and not alcoholic enough for such a good hops prescence.