Stone Stygian Descent

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

Rated Jan. 2017. 500mL caged and corked bottle pours with a dark mahogany colored body that supports a fairly tight mocha to root beer float like head. The aroma offers up a blast of oak and vanilla nuanced bourbon edged with a thin sharp whiskey sensation. Pulling ’beer’ aroma is difficult. The taste starts with smooth briefly sweet malts and then getting into dark roasted malts, burnt malts, a dash of spicy black licorice and then spicy wood. To midway it picks up a nice chocolate note with thin sharp boozy whiskey and sweet bourbon that’s a step or two behind. A few more sips and the whiskey note seems to grow with a correspondingly stronger boozy whiskey sharpness amid a thinner than expected body. As with most Stone barrel aged beers this one could be more with less barrel time. The beer notes, sadly, take a back seat to the treatment, but not by too much.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Pours dark chocolate brown that lets in a peep of brown light at the bottom. Tan head is thick and long-lasting. Aroma delivers strong woody hop, whisky, roasted malt and bourbon notes. Quite promising. Flavor ramps everything up a notch, especially the whisky, and tosses in a snip of chocolate. Mouthfeel features firm body and brisk effervescence, and leaves a woody and slightly smoky finish. Sublimely stygian.

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

Solidly in the "glad I tried it, but a one-timer" catergory. Three times as much and a step back from the awesome SSR base beer. VERY nice, but the hops definitely take a back seat to the barrel...making this a spicy, boozy, slightly sweet (and much stronger) black IPA. The bigger Stone 15 held up better in the barrels, but this was still a treat.