Category: California

Stone Brewing, San Diego, California

Two devils for two snowman
 

Two more from Stone Brewing of San Diego: Double Bastard Ale and Smoked Porter. A couple of months ago, I reviewed Arrogant Bastard here and Ruination IPA here.

The Double Bastard poured deep tea in colour with a beige head. It has the richness of Arrogant Bastard simplictor with something more of the hop whallop of Ruination. It is hot with massive malty flavours of tobacco, leather ballglove, apple butter and fig. Heavy body. At 10% alcohol it ought to whallop but it is a well blanketed bat that strikes. Comfort then good night. Here is what the advocation is saying.

The Smoked Porter was deep garnet, its rich smokiness not overwhelming and not really much in the finish. Below the molassesy deep malt there was some surprisingly fresh grape juiciness, then cola, then dates all laced with the reek. At 5.9% is is one of the more modest Stone brews. Not one of the BA’ers has a bad word to say about it. I think I had a pint of this on tap when I was in Vancouver in 1998 at The Whip, one of the nation’s finer spots, with my pal Robyn on a Saturday afternoon before we retired to Granville Island Market for rhubarb pie. Maybe these happy happy men who teach a beer class at UBC are occassional Whiperonians.

Arrogant Bastard Ale, Stone Brewing, California

This is a hot beer. Boozy. Good boozy.

But what would you expect from a beer who has its own URL at www.arrogantbastard.com and has “You Are Not Worthy” on the cap. Stone Brewing Company has a satanic theme going with its branding, too, that probably ensures that it will never be sold in the Liquor Commissions of Atlantic Canada. [Come to think of it, not unlike the third wave California ska band Mephiskaphelese, they of the skanking version of “Bumblebee Tuna”.] The webpage also includes personal oaths that you have to accept before it will let you in, including:

I acknowledge that the material contained herein may be contrary to the multi-million dollar ad campaigns conducted by large brewing companies I may or may not have been fool enough to believe in the past.

Attitude. Expected from a beer that also comes in double and oaked versions in 3 litre bottles with padlocks. I did not notice them being described as family sized.

The beer is loverly, ruby mahogany with none of the unbalanced hoppy excess of Stone’s Ruination IRA. No, this is pure balanced excess. Concentrate of ale. The hops are herbal and vegetative rather than floral, the water soft. It is a real showpiece of malt, big and rich but nothing tricky, no thread of chocolate or smoke. This is umami beer – not utterly dissimilar from miso if you think about it. If the Ruinator is raw garlic, Arrogant Bastard is it slow roasted. All the advocatonians, but for 2%, like it. One did not like the heat of the alcohol, one thought it was unfortunate that you could only have one or two. Deary me. The departed brewers of Belgium are rolling over in their graves.

$3.99 USD for one 22 oz bomber at the Party Source. With all the top ups at the border, probably something like $7.50 CND to get it to my sofa.

Big Hop Bombs: Ruination IPA, Stone Brewing, California

Nothing but an ale most masterful could claim this name. 7.7%. Light wine. It smells like opening a bag of hops pellets and tastes like licking one out. This is a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG brew and meant to be. If you do not like hops this is not the beer for you. If you can not contemplate beauty in the idea of having hops petals sprinkled upon your salad of leafy spring greens, this may not be the brew for you. If you like beer that hits your mouth like Tabasco with no pepper in sight, you may want to try it out. The bottle says:

Stone Ruination IPA. So called because of the immediate ruinous effect on your palate. The moment after the first swallow, all other food and drink items suddenly become substantially more bland than they were seconds before.

The same could be said for spraying your mouth with aerosol Pledge or Minwax…and for the same reason. This is BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG. Have I said that already? It is like distilling blue cheese down to a syrup and sucking down a pint of that. Intensity. Supersaturation of the hop acid. 100+ International bittering units. Right there. In my mouth. Here is what others say. Here is what the brewery says.Wow.