Stone 9th Anniversary Ale

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Rated in Feb. 2015. 22oz bottle courtesy of a splendid trade with FlacoAlto. It pours with a murky copper colored body that supports a thin near white head. The aroma offers up plums, apples, sugary malts, earthy green apple and funky earthy yeastiness. The taste quickly gets into honey and malt sweetened apple and plum notes. To midway it picks up brown sugar and an earthy funky yeast sensation. Above all of the sweetness hovers a modest tartness that seems almost tannin like or something. Interesting brew that I am glad to finally try after mistakenly missing it on far too many occasions.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

the age has definitely mellowed out the hops. makes me wonder what it tasted like 3 years ago... in 2009 the hops are almost non-existent, but what's left is a maltier sweeter taste, a unique brew...still quite good.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Bottled. Golden colour, mediumsized white head. Aroma is tropical fruits, hops, some grass and alcohol. Flavour is hops, sweet malts, mild alcohol and then caramel malts with some grassy bitterness in the finish. Nice brew!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

Pours a slightly hazed amber with a nice creamy, thick head. There’s still a nice fresh hoppiness in this, a mix of spruce and apricots. The flavor isn’t small, but there’s something watery about it. Nicely balanced with good hop character.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Pours a mostly clear ornag color with a one inch frothy head that slowly settles to a thin spotty cap and thick ring, and leaves a very nice looking web of lace. Smell; smells strongly hops with grapefruits and oranges, and some other fruits that I can't quite place (maybe apricots?). There's a pretty good malt presence in the nose to go along with the hops. Taste; strong alcohol notes hit right away. Bitter hops with some sweet grapefruit and oranges following. This has a petty solid malt backbone to counter thos hops some. I just wish the alcohol didn't have such a pronounced presence in the flavor. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, and to syrupy for me, and the drinkability takes a big hit due to the alcohol taste.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

September 2005 batch. Poured with good head, soapy foam, dense orange in colour. Mouthfeel hits first as smooth water undertone then amarillos take over leaving a coarse and chalky finish. Aroma dominated mostly by the Amarillos. A good finish. Fairly light and unagressive. Crisp and warming. This sample has had some time to sit and it has settled quite nicely into what I would consider a great 'social pint' ... (though you might wanna watch it at nearly 8%)! Ultimately, I couldn't find much to say but plenty enough to enjoy. Thanks Grub for the pleasent surprise!

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

WOW! I've never had anything like this. There is definitely some strong grapefruity citrus-like flavor in the taste. A beautiful orange color. Thin head, but then I drink a lot of my beers colder than they should be. The unique-ness of this brew may lie in the fact that I don't think I've ever had a wheat wine before, but I will definitely pick up more of these next time I make the long trek to town. 3-12-11: this has completely mellowed out in the interval since its release. It passed as a pretty lame IPA now. Tasty, so much foam that it gushed out of the bottle, but all in all, passed its prime.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Nice orange color with decent foamy lacing white head. Aroma is of lots of west coast hops and some grapefruit, some orange blossom, some lemon zest. Much the same for the flavor, only adding some yeast and some alcohol burn to it. Pretty damn decent. Thanks Shag. THought I’d had this one,but I hadn’t.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Bottle: Poured a clear golden color ale with a huge pure white creamy and foamy head with good lacing and retention. Aroma of citrus hops is quite dominant but also enjoyable. Taste is quite different from other beers I’ve tasted before and can be describe like a wheat Indian ale. Dominant citrusy hops over a light wheat base beer. Very interesting concept that could have been even more interesting if the beer had been less dominant on hops.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 5

Well, this is probably my third or maybe fourth expossure to this beer. And each time, my views have been relatively unchanged. That is to say, this has been -- and remains -- my least favorite Special Release from Stone; yes, even accounting for my dislike of the VE04.04.04.

I think my biggest problem with this is that "it just just doesn't work". That is to say, there are no technical faults here -- it's well brewed, like everything that Stone has put out in the past 8-9 years.

No, my qualm is not "how" this was brewed, but "what" was brewed. That is to say, I just don't think the recipe works. Hoppy wheat beers are a rare and dicey thing, and I've only had a scant few examples actually impress me (Gumballhead, most notably). Couple that "walking on the edge" aspect with the fact that this is mostly a 50/50 split of Amarillo and Crystal hops -- two hop varities I feel are still too new to really characterize well -- and this beer is walking a fine line, indeed.

Unfortuantely, the chalkiness and raw heat that I fist noticed with this beer mere days after it's release last calendar year really have not calmed down one bit over the past few months. The IBU's tend to beat back some of the cloyingness of the wheat malt -- but not enough to save it from being a bit teeth-grinding, IMO. And again, the fact that we're talking about two hop varities that have yet to really prove themselves in such an odd-ball situation, it all comes falling down like a house of cards in the end....

Not undrinkable, but inately flawed IMHO. A worthy experiment, but not one that needs repeating....

Music: Cathedral's "The Garden Of Earthy Delights"
//TB