Stone IPA

Found at the Binny's in Plainfield in there single bottle bin for $1.89. A steal for what a 6'er costs. Tasted the night prior to leaving at 6:00 AM Sunday morning for Cancun for a week with the Misewicz family.

Appearance: Completely clouded golden orange with hardly any head in existence, which is surprising to a Stone. Though, when poured improperly I can get a short lived micro-bubbled fizz to float atop for a minute or so. The beer doesn't really even boast any activity by way of visible carbonation or hop flocculent.

Aroma: A very clean and fresh outdoorsy smell. It reminds me of a conifer/pine forest (perhaps completely cut down by loggers....for the imaginative reader). The beer also has notes of orange and other pine sweet zest fruits.
Taste: The taste starts hardly sweet from some biscuit and mild barley malt. The remainder (and 95%) of the rest of the beer to the palate is consistently a developing pine taste. It tastes as if an entire pine tree was logged, chopped into small pieces, ground up, made into a tea, and then concentrated into a syrup and poured over a granola bar (for the imaginative reader). AKA the pine is ridiculously strong! It leaves a very dry resined aftertaste that is short lived but when the tongue is pressed to the roof of the mouth, one can still draw a mild grassy bitterness. Some grapefruit may be drawn from this beer, but more underneath the pine citrus and hops.
Mouthfeel: Medium body with somewhat of a sticky feel primarily from the hop resins making a drying sticky bitter texture. Carbonation is perfect to complement the overall structure of the beer.
Overall Impression: I couldn't really draw much else from the beer besides the pine. The resins from the enormous amounts of hops truly defines all elements of the beer, from flavor to mouthfeel and aroma. Decent, but a strange way to conduct a beer recipe... Literally, like I said, like drinking a pine tree. Not much balance in this one, but I appreciate the


86/100