Stones Premium Alcoholic Ginger Beer

24 Apr 2006 - Sweet ginger aroma. Very light yellow-white cloudy colour low carbonation. Sweet simple ginger flavour. Easy drinking lacks a spark. Basically its lolly water.

Bottle. I couldn’t find a date on this thing but I would bet that the one I had had been sitting in that megafridge for a looooong time. Poured so cloudy with particulate matter that I was afraid I might get a yeast infection in my mouth from drinking it. Flavor was very ginger beer-typical meaning there was no surprise difference from any other alcoholic or non-alcoholic ginger beer. I don’t really know what else to say that would make you want to try this. It didn’t suck, but it should be last on your list if you are out to try new beers.

In the bottle. Pours cloudy white/yellow similar in appearance to the old soda pop known as "Wink." Ginger is the overpowering aroma. A very sweet flavor with the ginger emerging after the sweetness subsides. This has a long palate, but it is just way too sweet for me.

Bottle: I thought this was pretty nice, so I was surprised to see the other ratings for it. Oh well... Very, veryh pale yellow green. Nice fresh giner aroma with some sugar, citrus, and touches of floral notes. In the mouth a slightly dead malt note mid-palate took away from what would otherwise have been a refreshing, quenching ginger freshness. Some pleasant lingering citrus notes. Not too keen on the preservatives - couple of points off for that...

Thanks to Highlandlad for bringing this one up. I tasted it almost a year ago to the day after sampling a bottle of Blue Tongue’s Ginger beer. Couldn’t find it on the site and thought nothing of it as it was a mere soda in comparison to the better Ginger beers on the market. Notes were bleak so here goes:- Poured a cloudy palest lemony beige. Intermittent in carbonation but clearly charged before bottling as the bubbles that were present were huge and clung firmly to the glass. Generous, yet sharp and biting, ginger extract nose; overly sweet and sugary. Similar in the mouth and increasing with vigour; it was sweet to the point of being clammy. Harsh, prickly carbonation bit at the front of the tongue, but moved into a clammy mess before the swallow and the aftertaste was very long and sweet with feint notes of ginger root. This was the definition of one dimensional as all I got was sugar. It wasn’t awful, actually was easy to drink chilled, but it had to be downed quickly. (33cL, BWS Balga)

Tried this back in sept. last year with 3 other ginger beers. Pale light green body with no head to speak about. Sweet taste but not too heavy, ginger not too full on, this was probably runner up in the four that I tried. Refreshing enough and better balanced than a couple of the others, I just don’t think I would have more than one or two.

Bit of a curiosity: an alcoholic ginger beer brewed by an Australian winemaker under licence from the venerable Stone’s of London. The twist is that Stone’s don’t brew a ginger beer themselves, so at time of writing this is exclusive to Australia. The ingredients list includes flavours, food acid and preservatives, besides barley malt, hops and ginger extract, so expectations are modest. It poured a cloudy ’real’ lemonade colour. No head and very little visible carbonation. Classic mass-produced ginger beer aroma, thin and chemical, with some lemonade and ginger extract. Medium body but very syrupy sweet. The ginger gives it some genuine pep and mouth-prickle, but otherwise it’s like drinking a very dense solution of sugarwater. Way too sweet and syrupy for my taste. If I didn’t know this was alcholic, I’m not sure I would guess. (330ml bottle, bb 22/8/05)