Stone California Double IPA

Cask at the JDW near Old Street,4th April 2008. Due to my tardiness in typing up this rate, I may well be the last person to rate it. Orangey amber in colour with very little carbonation. There are fruit notes in the nose and on the tongue but of course what you really feel are the HOPS. My notes include the phrase "hopped to ****" and oh my god it works. The finish is seemingly endless and as the previous ratings attest, this beer has turned heads. I wonder what JDW will conjure for next year’s fest. Until then, Stone - I salute you!

Cask, various Spoons across the Midlands. Let’s get the beer porn bit out the way first; vicious hop nose, viscous sap mouthfeel, gold body gilded with a pillowy head, a melange of fruit borne unto the palate by ranks of cherubim and serpahim.... a great beer? Yes. At less than two quid a pint. Fantastic. A style that challenges British brewers to come up with something more imaginative than yet another festival mix? Possibly. A one-off experience that GB Ratebeerians are already getting dewy-eyed about? Probably. A beer that I’m glad to have hammered (session drinking round here is a hard knock life)? Certainly.

Cask, The Last Plantagenet and two other JDWs. Golden with an off-white head, quite viscous. Aromas are lots of apricot and sweet grapefruit with woody notes. Spicy and peppery with pine. Almost like an aftershave. Flavours are fruity with melon, apricot and citrus. Bitter green pine with woody notes. Slightly herbal with oranges. Grapefruit with bitterness on the finish. Addictive and very good.

Handpulled cask at several JDW pubs durng their international beer fest. I was very excited to read about this beer in Spoons festival program and fortunately didn’t have long to wait until it appeared at my office local. It looked great, orange with an off-white head. The aroma was as strong and apertising as any beer I’ve ever encountered, the smell of huge quantities of hops hitting me long before I raised the glass to my nose The taste was was an absolute explosion of flavours. The most complex hop characture I’ve ever experienced but balanced by the juicest malts. The resinous hop oils present made this powerful brew slip down far too easily despite it’s strength so my lunch break pint didn’t last long. The flavours with me four ours later when I clocked off from work and I headed sraight back to the pub for more. Alas, they had sold out, understandably. Over the next two weeks I visited a couple of dozen or more Spoons pubs by bike, bus, car or train in search of this wonderful beer and was lucky enough to find it four more times. I tried it with/ without sparkler, fresh barrel / last pint out of barrel, sipping and making it last or a 5 pint quaffing session where it just got better and better until I could barely speak and was ordered out of the pub by my wife It was never anything short of delicious and was without doubt the best english brewed beer I have ever tried. Hats off to JDW for making this happen and PLEASE commission some more for your next festival.

Thank you to a great friend from across the pond for getting me a hand-bottle of this! Poured crystal-clear, lighter orangey-golden with some loose bubbles sticking around for head.. lovely color to it. The flavor picked up juicy grapefruit and pears from the Simcoe (I’m a mega-sucker for Simcoe) with layers of soft caramel, pine, and sweet grapefruit meat.. I smelled this for about 15 minutes before I thought to drink some. The flavor retained the juiciness with sweet pear juice and grapefruit meat.. caramel provided more substance and texture than flavor.. bitterness was moderate-high, again with the juicy fruits and pine.. the finish was long-ish and a great memory of this drink! Roughly medium-bodied on the palate with very low carbonation.. gave it a bit of a slick feel.. again a long, succulent finish. I’m stoked that this survived the journey so well! Awesome beer!