San Diego’s Beer Mecca status is well established. Ask anyone who has been there or has spent more than a couple hours there, and they will tell you: “The weather is perfect” and “The Beer is amazing.” Scientists are now trying to bottle San Diego sunshine and export it around the world, for more than its potential positive effects on brewing — people there seem to be pretty happy. The self-assured vibe of Stone Brewing has been well established also (this month’s issue of Brew Your Own has a good feature on the brewery, which includes some great homebrew clone recipes), and I’m proud to log reviews of two new beers from this outstanding Brewery, one of the few San Diego brewery that manages to bottle and export many, many bottles of sunshine to New York City on a regular basis.
The first Stone beers that really caught my attention were its massive, insane IPAs. Ruination is one of my all time favorites, and the regular Pale Ale and IPA are no slouches either. Once I got hooked on their brews, though, I was able to see how many different things they were capable of, and their obsession with Belgian Yeast flavors has been evident in their Vertical Epic series. Cali-Belgique is an attempt to marry the massive citrus and floral hop aromas of West Coast IPAs with the tropical, warm fruit nose of Belgian Yeasts, especially evident in their Golden Ales, but prevalent in various forms all around the Motherland. Without a doubt, Cali-Belgique is a huge success, managing to skirt the line between the two styles in a way that is both uniquely Stone and unequivocally Belgian influenced. Cali-Belgique pours a bright copper color, like a classic west coast IPA, with tight bubbles and a quickly dissipating head. The nose is an awesome mixture of Belgian Yeast and West Coast IPA hop aromas, with almost no malt noticable at all. Sipping this beer gives off great fruit and citrus from the hops which mixes very well with the fruit flavors from the yeast. An assertive yet transparent malt backbone which is a tiny bit thin for my tastes with a bitter beer like this, but they seem to be taking the dryness cue from the Belgians on this. I was really glad to hear that Stone would be making this a year-round style, and this represents a very successful volley in the Belgium-influenced-us-and-then-we-influenced-them-and-now-they’re-influencing-us-again thing. I’m glad New York City is smack in the middle between California and Belgium — we see a lot of good crossfire.
One other way that Stone is exploring the possibilites of brewing and stretching the boundaries of commercial beer is to participate in collaborations with other breweries. Collaborations are all the rage right now, both in the US and in Europe, where “gypsy brewers” like Mikkeller wander the continents and collaborate with brewers they admire. In this case, Stone is collaborating with BDB favorite Jolly Pumpkin and Norweigan trailblazer Nogne 0. The popularity of collaborations has been overwhelmingly positive, resulting in a bunch of new beers that wouldn’t have existed if certain juggernauts had not put their heads together in a creative way. The Stone/JP/Nogne beer is a holiday ale, meant to highlight indigenous ingredients from each brewery’s environment — Chestnuts from Michigan, Juniper Berries from Norway, and Sage from California. This beer is also brewed with 25% rye malt, which gives a lot of spicy balance to this otherwise pretty huge beer. This ale pours a dark brown with red highlights, accompanied by a small, quickly fading white head. The aroma is fantastic — hints of Sage and Juniper berry come through, and a hint of spiciness from Hops and Rye. There’s a good deal of body in this beer, which makes it appropriate for the style, but there is dryness on the finish that doesn’t make it difficult to get through the 12oz bottle. Relatively high ABV makes this a sipper, but the flavors that run through this beer, especially as it warms up, are fantastic. The juicy quality from the Juniper berries stood out most for me, and I don’t get much Chestnut at all, but I’m not sure what to be looking for there. Overall, this is a successful beer that has a lot going on, and is about as focused as a collaboration between three brewing luminaries could really be. Each wanted their say, and they got it — the result is a great beer, a step forward for craft brewing, and a unique flavor and aroma profile that would be very difficult to recreate. Check each brewery’s website for accounts of the brewing process — it sounds like it worked out quite well.
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