REVIEW 131: STONE IPA

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Stone Brewing

STYLE:  IPA

ABV:  6.9%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.50

SERVING:  Chilled pint glass. Ideal 1-1.25" head from the tap. Excellent retention.

APPEARANCE:  Beautiful caramel-gold body on this beer, with a bright and luminescent white head. Narrow but steady bubbling. Semi-transparent. Outstanding lacing.

BOUQUET:  (Take a guess.) Hops. And citrus. BUT . . . hints of malt and more than subtle note of caramel with this one. Not a placebo thing.

PALATE:  A little heavy with expected carbonation. Hoppy, but very well tempered with caramel, malt, and some citrus notes. Hop bitterness characterizes the early going, whereas malt sweetness rises in the finish and lingers afterward, a little too much. Otherwise, this is one of the more expertly crafted palates you'll find on an American IPA. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Introduced in 1997, supposedly this is the IPA that convinced many an American beer drinker to go full-on hophead. 

Is it the original American IPA? I can't say with certainty. But it almost certainly spawned many an imitator, even within the same brewery. Check out Stone's lineup. It seems roughly one out of every three or four beers they offer is an IPA of some sort. Hops are addictive, man. I guess that's why Stone is now the fifteenth largest brewery in the United States. 

I would agree they owe their success in no small part to their original, classic, "west-coast" IPA. What makes it "west coast?" More hops and more alcohol content (supposedly). Another percentage point, and this would be more of an imperial IPA. But who cares? It's the taste that matters, and despite its scores of imitators, this hasn't been bested my many of them.




GRADE:  A

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Stone Brewing.