Stone 21st Anniversary Double IPA Hail to the Hop Thief, brewed and bottled by Stone Brewing, Escondido, CA & Richmond, VA. 9.8% Alc. by Vol. 80 IBU."A double india pale ale fit for our 21st year."
Hazy, bright golden, voluminous ivory head, and composed of a multitude of "floats". Did I get an old bottle? Not sure. Huh.
In the nose: lovely hop expression, floral, lightly citrus, slightly tropical, delicate fruit notes. Nice.
In the mouth: Bold, brash bitterness at the start, resinous, oily, hop-forward for sure. A barrage of bitterness, a brisk blast of hop flavors. Lean bodied, mellow malt, all here is in service of letting the hop flag fly. Creamy, smooth, and big and bitter. Just like I like my double IPAs. Yum. Yu-um. Or even, as I like to say from time to time, Yum-a-Dum, Dum! (Don't forget to quote me when you use that next!)
This is awfully good, forgiving the floaties. (Storage issue? The bottle was sitting at room temp at the store where I bought it.)
There's a whole lot of gobbledygook on the label....maybe I'll find a link for it. I'm sure it's amusing and informative.
The big wide world inspires our imagination and fuels our passions. Anything from music, film, beer, literature, architecture, food, engineering, poetry…all art forms essentially, including more beer. We steal with any and all things that possess the one value that we hold most dear: authenticity. The important thing of course is that ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.’ So, what are we saying about this beer, exactly? We gave it our take. We took all there is to love about the IPA, got creative, dry-hopped it a lot, left it unfiltered and shared it openly in the hopes that in some way it may, in turn, inspire you. Hail to The Hop Thief, an original.
That's much shorter than what's on the label. Guess I've got to break out my reading glasses....
No comments:
Post a Comment