Stone Brewing Company IPA

Hello beer lovers and welcome to another edition of the NorCal Beer Blog's brew review.

Tonight’s featured beer is Stone Brewing Company IPA.  With so many fantastic IPAs on the market I had not ventured to review Stone’s IPA before my trip to San Diego in late October.  When I purchased beer for my room I decided to pick up a 22 for strictly educational (review) purposes.

From the Stone Brewing Company website:” An "India Pale Ale" by definition is highly hopped and high in alcohol - you'll find our Stone India Pale Ale to be true to style with a huge hop aroma, flavor and bitterness throughout. If you're a hop-head like us, then you'll love our Stone India Pale Ale! Medium malt character with a heavy dose of over the top hops! Generous "dry hopping" gives this beer its abundant hop aroma and crisp hop flavor.”

I decided to post a little IPA history lesson from Stone:” The History of India Pale Ales: Originally developed in the late 1700's, British breweries would send beer via sail to the troops and British expatriots in India. Problem was, there was no refrigeration and the ocean voyage took nearly five months. As a result, the beer would usually arrive in compromised condition. Well, the brewers of the time didn't know as much about beer as we do today, but they did know that both hops (where we get the bitterness in beer) and alcohol act as natural preservatives. So, they came up with a brew that was intensely hopped and rather high in alcohol --- thus the birth of the "India Pale Ale." You'll find our Stone India Pale Ale to be true to style with a huge hop aroma, flavor and bitterness throughout. If you're a hop-head like us, then you'll love our Stone India Pale Ale!”

Let’s get started!

Appearance: Pours an orange amber with a great head, thin lacing and good retention.

Aroma: Pine citrus and floral hops…but mostly pine.  There’s a very sweet malt scent as well, but hops take center stage.

Taste: Taste much like the aroma with citrus and pine hops. Sweet pale malt and some biscuit maltiness round out this impeccable IPA.

Overall: Stone Brewing Company IPA is exceptional – no doubt about it and at 6.9% ABV Stone IPA is going to take you there.  Would I say this is the best IPA out there?  Hard to say (and I don't think I could argue against it).  I won’t hesitate to add this to my beer fridge arsenal from time to time. 

Cheers!

Mark Harvey