Stone 10th Anniversary IPA

Bottle. I was fortunate to find this brew after I thought for sure it was all gone. I was in the Bay Area 2 weeks ago and forgot to look for it, and 3 months after it’s release I figured for sure it was gone. Luckily I was able to locate a couple of bottles. Sticky sweet aroma, wonderful. Reddish amber with plentiful, visible carbonation. Large, off-white head; frothy, creamy. Unbelievably good. Strong, piney, sweet. Perfect balance. A little too strong of an alcohol presence, otherwise, IPAs don’t get much better than this.

22 oz bottle: Pours thick and orangey colored w/a lasting off white head. Initial mouthfeel is thick, like vegetable oil. Initial aroma is grapefruit citrusy, piney, and floral. Toasty malt and caramel come in 2nd, 3rd, 4th place... and a dried apricot and grapefruit aroma as it warms. Well balanced but to sweet malty flavors overall with a grapefruit citrusy flavor up front. Caramel & light toasty malt w/ a sweet finish and aftertaste that is citrusy as well as floral. Very full bodied, smooth m/f, very, very well hidden alcohol. Too high ABV for an IPA, and very well hidden alc. for 10%. A bit on the sweet side for some, but not for me! Definitely not an IPA though!

On tap. Pours a hazy orange with a tall white head. Massive piney hop aroma, very resiny. Taste just tries to put some sweetness upfront, but the bitterness is just to strong for it. Citrus and pine flavors mix in the bitterness in this hop display. Alochol shows a bunch, should have probably let this age more. Finish has a lot of grapefruit character.

Rating #1000 - It’s thanks to almost five years of being a member to RB.com that I’m even aware of beers like Stone 10th Anniversary. I thought this would be an appropiate beer for rating one thousand. Crisp amber with strong malt presense and a perfect display of a 2XIPA. Cellaring would improve the beer overall but I thought it was an excellent bomber.

DAMN, this amber orange body with a white head was all hops in the nise. Immense grapefruit and pine. Juicy taste. OPungent white grapefruit with pine and bitter hops. The alcohol is right there mixed with all thw hops. I would call this a fruit beer, man, there is so much grapefruit in here. Did I mention graoefruit.

Aroma is of gratefruits and a good bit of malts.Pours copper with a white head.A nice bitterness from the big hops,but balanced nicely by the big maltyness.Mouthfull is thick with a sweetness then finishes with bitter hops.

22 oz. bottle. Intense pine aroma lingers with every sip. Clear copper color with thick white head. Rich hop and pine flavor. Thick sticky palate. This beer definitely has a personality and is a good choice if you need a hop fix.

A thankyou to Kook for lobbing this one back from the U.S.
Served up at backyard patio temperature at a small tasting here in Perth.
Bright as bright it presented, a shimmering amber with a good dense white head that I had money on was laboratory adjusted. Nose was like crushed gum leaves, an oily, acrid and piercing sap from ’a tree my mother warned me not to touch as a youngster’ and some humid, gaseous mown lawn clippings. Subtleties don’t stand a chance but are evident like that ever present U.S. pine-nut thing and maybe some leftfield roggenbrot notes. Honestly raw and unrelenting in the mouth, like paint-stripper ’hop-style’, this does not work. Woeful comes to mind though it is intriguing as a pasteurised, filtered product (and think of product as in something the consumer buys in bulk, I mustn’t be that person! - I am also not that next rater I have tabs on will rate 3.9+, just to not cause a dive), that the intensity still has held and the malt now has been phased right downwards as second bait - beer, who needs malt!?!
Light pale honey note upfront, some burnt white bread, maybe. Big hops, resinous, almost untrue (as stated earlier). Heavily grassy, acrid, sour, sharp and not together norm for a palate to take. There is no peak of bitterness as the IBU’s must be measured in length and not degrees. Length - piney, tangy, sour, a lot of singled out alcohol and heavy vodka-like warmth. It has a good kick, but it is lazily prepared and advancingly poor for a beer like this to mark anniversaries let alone be a celebration of all things U.S. Not a good anniversary ale at all, I’m only honest.
(! pint, FL.Oz, date unknown)