Stone 9th Anniversary Ale

Formerly brewed at Stone Brewing Co.
Style: American Strong Ale
Escondido, California USA

Bottle. Poured orange color (like an orange nectar) with off white head. Head dissapates very quickly. Aroma is orange, hops, and malt. Taste is malty, a sweet malt with some wheaty taste as well. Tastes like a lighter Hercules Double IPA a wee bit. Nice finish, good beer.

Poured from the bomber an amber color with an off-white head. Aroma was of sweet malts, a bit of orange citrus and a touch of hops. Flavor was malty with candied oranges (it was almost like it was caramelized) with a ever so slight bitter finish.

Pours a cloudy orange with a thin dissapating head.Grains and malt shooting thru.Has nice flavor but the finish gets clumped up on the back of your throat, otherwise pretty damn good.

Bomber. Pours fully orange with a bit of white filmy head. The nose is bready and wheaty. The attack is fairly neutral, but the mid palate does show a lot of sweet wheat and some sweet malt. The finish is long, dry, and bitter. Not sure what I was expecting, and this may or may not be a brand new type of beer, but it’s satisfying and tastes great. (I know, sounds like faint praise, given that they were probably aiming for more).

This beer leaves glass and fills my chalice with a peachy-hued, opaque liquid, only shadows seen through, ’neath a solid cap of lace-leaving foam, thick, solid, puffy white...very, very attractive, quite nice. Aroma is pleasing, rife with citric, hoppy flavors, and plump in yeast content, farmshouse-esque, and plenty funky, too. Lemon and straw, with a generous blast of spice. Taste is full and fruity, evenly balanced, nicely split between herbal, hoppy, malty quarters...wait, that’s only three...let me get back to you...tangy, snappy, a big bounce on the palate...liking this...zesty, beautiful, just gritty enough to give and take pleasantly in the mouth. Full bodied, long, citric, hoppy finish...Good beer, here. Ah....I’m liking it!

Bottle courtesy of <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/ViewUser.asp?U target=blank> mds, thanks Mike. Light orange-amber in colour, lingering large off-white head, nice puffy lacing. The aroma was of generous amounts of hops (oranges, pine), some caramels malts, light sweetness. The flavour was again hoppy, lots of oranges citrus, caramel sweetness, creamy. Chewy dry mouthfeel, medium body, medium carbonation. Finishes bitter and dry, lingering. Quite nice.

22 oz bomber. Orange beer, thick yellow head. Creamy and sticky lacing. Beautiful tropical fruit and pine resin hops. Spicy and slightly orange as well. Great hop bill. Some light soft wheaty aroma underneath the assertive tropical/spicy hops. Flavour delivers the goods. Big bright tropical hops, strong citrus and a bit of pine. Soft creamy texture. Wheaty spice mingles with the spicy hops in the finish. Bitterness is present but surprisingly restrained. Lingering orange/tangerine flavour. The hops work well with all of the wheat in here producing a very tasty and original brew. Nice work.

Lucid translucency and polished copper-orange in color with a creamy, bubbly white head and a lacey/doily wrung around the edges. Aroma is intense. Honey, nectarines, basted maple, nectary apple fig neutons, apple butter, candied apricots and caramelized wheat. Certainly has no lack of originality. Caramelized bitterness sweeps in and leaves honey dipped willow wheat in its wake. Melding honey glazes meander between the smacking action of the tongue to mouth. Honeydew and nectar drizzles underlie the persuasive background sweetness. Rough spun sweet rolls and sourdough combo. Creamy vanilla blossoms sweetly serenade the backend while a thick, tight viscosity preoccupies the palate. Sweet wheat, honey and caramelized malts stand up to the American hop brigade. Finish is a bittersweet symphony at its most dramatic maturation. Butterscotch tones and a spicy flair from the hop activity collide with caramel drizzles along sweetened oat flakes, and then it’s sprinkled with a couple crumbled hop pellets as an ever lasting signature. Licking the chops post mortem brings out salty, baked rye sourdough pretzels. It’s a West Coast IPA cut loose in the prairie lands (not that I’m trying to define it; I’m just trying to wrap my mouth around it.)