Stone Brewing Company ///Fear.Movie.Lions – American Double / Imperial IPA at 8.5% ABV | 60 IBU (568 ml, packaged on 24-Aug-2023, best before 22-Dec-2023, acquired 3-Feb-2024, reviewed 29-Jan-2024)
Appearance: hazy medium gold with one finger of fine pale ivory head diminishing gradually to a thin skim, moderate soapy lacing. (3/5) Aroma: tropical & muddled fruit, bready malts. (7/10) Taste: moderate sweet, moderate-high bitter. (7/10) Palate: medium body, moderate carbonation, sweetish medium duration mildly warming finish. (4/5)
In case it’s not obvious, the name is a WhatThreeWords location for a 3m grid square in their the middle of their Richmond Virginia brewery. (I guess it sounds better than “privately.cable.onion” a couple squares over, or “discouraged.stones.visit” in their tap room?) If you ask me, there’s something very apropos about Stone using W3W for naming: they both seemed poised to be game-changers a few years ago, before everyone kinda went “Wait, how is this even a thing?” And yeah, to be fair, they both work – sorta. But they’re both also kind of up their own asses. And yes, I was an unabashed fanboy with Arrogant Bastard and Enjoy By and some other offerings, but then they kinda jumped the shark with the Stochastity project, and Berlin, and any number of other swings and misses, and I was more than a little over them. Which leaves me here, older, wiser, crankier, balder, fatter… ahem. Anyway, it’s not that bad: I sort of get the stated intent of merging WCIPA with NEIPA, but I also sort of feel like this is a day late and a dollar short effort to hop on a bandwagon. It does a good job of making a fairly high ABV quite palatable, but other than that, it’s merely OK. (14/20)
This will be my 5,748th unique Untappd check-in.
7/10 #ryansbooze ryansbooze.com
