Stone Ruination Ale 10th Anniversary

Stone Ruination 10th Anniversary Ale, 10.8% ALC./VOL., Ruining palates for ten years, brewed and bottled by the Stone Brewing Company, Escondido, CA.

Lightly hazed, golden apricot hue, with a slim, white, dotted head. Looks good.

Aroma: Everything you want in a double IPA and more. Blasts the senses with pine, citrus, and tropical fruits. Bright, bitter, fierce, and furious. Juicy, fresh, deep, and rereshing. Alcohol is felt, but quickly forgiven. We know this will be a challenge, but the beautiful smack of hops makes us forget what's to come. Ah, scrumptious!

Gonna read the vast, voluminous copy on the side of the bottle. blah, blah, blah…pat yourselves on the back, puff yourself up…blah, blah, blah…mmm, hmmm, hmmm….lots of informative history of the origins of the double IPA style…but, without a mention of what makes this different from regular Ruination. Why not? No one knows. (Well, I do, now that I've checked the website. Alcohol raised up 3%, hop additions doubled. 110 IBUs? Damn, but it did feel like it!)

I keep drinking, and I keep thinking, damn, this is delicious. Also, incredibly bitter, but so consumable for the hop head with a tolerance for higher alcohol.  It's the ne plus ultra of Ruination, while still being able to slip past the lips and go all the way down the gullet. All the usual suspect flavors at play, all the resiney, piney, grapefruit, lemon, and pineapple.

My first Ruination was 10 years ago, mere months after it was released. I didn't know this until Greg Koch told me when I met him for the first time. In my entry for Ruination Ale, I told the story of how it "ruined" me. It was one of the first double IPAs I had ever had, but definitely not the first. In the intervening 10 years, there has been so much done with palate rippers and booze bombs in the name of hop delivery, it's easy to forget how far we've come, and what a leader this beer really was.