Special # 18 | Epic Stone Brewing Tasting
Until recently, we’ve neglected reviewing Stone beers on the The Hopry. I’m still not exactly sure why I was so lazy to pick some up, but it just seemed to work out that way. Whatever the reason, though, Tim and I are here to remedy this oversight today with five different beers (that range several number of styles). We began with about 45-minutes of footage and have trimmed it back to a “comfortable” 22-minutes for you. What we can say in short is that we really enjoyed all of these beers (Cali-Belgique, Arrogant Bastard, Sublimely Self-Righteous, Old Guardian, and Smoked Porter) very much. You’ll see that even the lowest rated beer received a good score from us. At the end of the day, we definitely think it’s a testament to this brewery. So sit back, grab a beer, order a pizza, and enjoy! Cheers!
Check out all sessions of The Hopry here.
These beers can be found in these states.
Listening To: Tandy Love “Mr. Bear Hug”
Let us know your thoughts by rating and commenting on this video.
Posted by KevSal on May 20, 2011 at 11:45 AM
awesome, made it through the 22min haha. sublimely self righteous is one of my favorite beers, the title fits the beer its really is something else (and its probably my favorite artwork too). the beer started as an anniversary beer, but it was such a hit they put it into their rotation. i need to get myself another one asap.
Posted by KevSal on May 20, 2011 at 11:48 AM
oh what vintage is the old guardian?
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 1:04 PM
It was a 2009.
Posted by Rob on May 20, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Great session and nice to see things shaken up a bit. I just had a 6 day old Sublimely two nights ago and you’re right! I gets your attention. My favorite of the Black IPA style without batting an eye.
Thanks Mark!
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Awesome! Six days! It’s a beauty for sure. Glad you enjoyed the session.
Posted by theReaper16 on May 20, 2011 at 12:44 PM
The 22 minute length was not a chore at all. I had no problems watching all of it, and I could have gone for the whole 45 minutes.
I too love Sublimely Self-Righteous. It’s my favorite beer of that style. Speaking of that style: I can’t bring myself to call the style “Cascadian Dark Ale.” That is an attempt by the pacific northwest brewers (aka brewers near the Cascade Range mountains) to claim the style for themselves. I can’t stomach that, because the style wasn’t even invented in the pacific northwest! The first “Black IPA” in America was brewed across the country in Vermont. I prefer the term IBA — India Black Ale. That said, there probably isn’t any stylistic difference between these American black IPAs and old East India Porters from England. Hoppy porter beer is an old tradition.
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 1:08 PM
Yeah, I always feel the need to speak to all of the style names so I won’t offend someone, but I’m like you in that I just call it “Black IPA.” And really glad the length was cool. I watched it all the way through after sitting there editing it for two hours and felt really good with the final edit. So thanks for sharing your thoughts…
Posted by builderofcoalitions on May 20, 2011 at 12:55 PM
Be sure to share this post with the Stone rep on Twitter as well as Greg Koch. He’s pretty good at commenting on blogs. He commented on mine.
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 1:06 PM
Will do, I sent him a message offline and haven’t heard back. That’s okay, he’s probably busy.
Posted by henry a on May 20, 2011 at 3:17 PM
Dope review and website mark. Really enjoy everthing u have going on in the the hopry. Keep up the excellent work
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 4:03 PM
Thank you sir. Glad you enjoy it and always appreciate the kind words… Cheers!
Posted by builderofcoalitions on May 20, 2011 at 4:03 PM
After finding time to watch the whole thing, I’m now more motivated than ever to put together an OG vertical. I have 08-11, plus this year’s Belgo. I don’t know that I’ll drink this year’s or the Belgo, but a vertical would be fun.
Thanks guys for sharing this tasting. There’s a ton of great information in there.
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 4:24 PM
Awesome! Really glad you enjoyed it. And if we can…ahem…help you in any way with your vertical tasting, just let us know.
Posted by builderofcoalitions on May 20, 2011 at 4:27 PM
We’ll see.
Posted by Louie on May 20, 2011 at 4:43 PM
Nice work, fellas! I just had a 2009 Old Guardian recently and I was surprised that it still had a bit of a bitter resinous hop bite that was messing up flavor profile. Another year or two and I bet it will be awesome. These are all great beers, but my favorite Stone beer is easily the Imperial Russian Stout. It is phenomenal with age, but still great fresh – especially the 2010 vintage – holy crap that stuff was good.
Posted by thehopry on May 21, 2011 at 2:39 PM
Hopefully we will see that one in Kansas City. If so, I’ll definitely pick up one.
Posted by Greg Koch on May 20, 2011 at 4:53 PM
D TheHopry Thanks for the vid. Nice job. FYI: http://www.stonebrew.com/press/proper-names.asp Definitely agree…”Black IPA” is the correct term!
Cheers,
@StoneGreg (the guy with the twitter address that @TheHopry is not following evidently…). J
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Thank you for the tweet Greg, and more importantly for the great beer. And I will follow now. Didn’t realize I wasn’t…
Posted by Karen Rose on May 20, 2011 at 5:17 PM
I really liked the longer format and comparison between beers from one brewery. I’d enjoy seeing you guys do it again sometime with another brewery that has lots of interesting beers – something like Goose Island, Russian River or maybe Unibroue?
I have a friend who loves smoked beers and she was actually quite disappointed that there was so little smoke in the Stone porter.
Posted by theReaper16 on May 20, 2011 at 5:24 PM
That’s my beef with Stone Smoked Porter: it’s light on the smoke AND the underlying porter is pretty average.
Alaskan Smoked Porter is the rightful benchmark of the smoked porter family.
Posted by thehopry on May 21, 2011 at 2:41 PM
It was very thin on the palate, but to be honest we were just coming off an 11% Barleywine so I think we were giving it the benefit of the doubt. Having said that, I really enjoyed it for what it was. I’d still drink another 10 SSRs before I’d go back to it, though.
Posted by Eamonn Murphy on May 20, 2011 at 7:49 PM
Ha! Kind of crazy that I live in the UK and I’ve already had every single one of these beers.
And yet, you didn’t even review my favourite Stone beer: STONE IRS!!!
Posted by thehopry on May 20, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Couldn’t find one. Otherwise we definitely would have…
Posted by Danny Armstrong on May 20, 2011 at 11:30 PM
Nicely done, fellas! Lots of great info, and the length if the video was great, if you liked the movie The Titanic (just kidding).
Like Karen said, it would be cool to see this type of session again. Perhaps with Lagunitas? You know, since they just released three more beers to our area.
Posted by thehopry on May 21, 2011 at 4:11 AM
We’ll look to do this again for sure. It was a lot of fun. And yeah I’ll need to check out those new Lagunitas beers. They do good work as well…
Posted by Big Mike on May 22, 2011 at 5:07 PM
This was an awesome session Mark! You could have kept all 45 minutes of video and it still would have help my attention. You make me really want to go out and pick up some SSR right now. Again, awesome session. Keep up the great work my friend.
Cheers!
Big Mike
Posted by Big Mike on May 22, 2011 at 5:07 PM
help my attention = “kept” my attention
Posted by thehopry on May 22, 2011 at 7:52 PM
Thank you Mike. Glad you enjoyed it. The 45-minute version rambled in too many places. That’s what happens after a few big beers…
Posted by Brian on May 22, 2011 at 5:17 PM
Great session. Stone is definitely one of my favorite breweries. I agree with you guys about Sublimely Self Righteous. That is a fantastic beer.
Posted by thehopry on May 22, 2011 at 7:53 PM
Thank you Brian. They definitely have a number of great beers. I know of about three more that I’d still like to try, too. Maybe in the future… Cheers!
Posted by Jeff on May 23, 2011 at 2:07 AM
Excellent video! The format was good, and I agree with the others that the format is good. Brewery episodes would be a win. Bell’s..? Stone 2008 Imperial Russian Stout actually warmed me to the idea of bourbon barrel-aged beers. Not a fan of bourbon, but it was so good…
Posted by thehopry on May 24, 2011 at 9:50 PM
I’ll definitely try to set something else up again in the future… Maybe when we get Deschutes and/or Green Flash.
Posted by Martin on May 23, 2011 at 11:12 AM
A great session. A very good introduction to Stone. Along, I drank my first Stone beer, an oaked Arrogant Bastard. It is a really enjoyable beer, it’s very smooth and with the subtle oakiness on it, it reminds me of a nice whiskey.
I hope that the rumours, of Stone opening an extension in Europe, come thru, but it keeps a little quiet about it.
Posted by thehopry on May 24, 2011 at 9:51 PM
From what I’ve heard it’s true. You guys should expect it for sure…