The beers of Corona CA: Stone Citracado IPA

This is another one I got at Von's. This is Stone's 20th anniversary beer the Citracado IPA, named after the street the brewery is on, Citracado Parkway. This is a Double IPA with citra hops and avacado flower honey. I already talked about the brewery in my previous post, so refer back to that one for information on Stone. Or you could just Google it, that's where I get most of my information on these brewerys anyways. On another note, Happy Marine Corps birthday! How fitting that I'm reviewing Stone's 20th anniversary beer on my Marine Corps 241st.

It's a bulb neck bomber like the previous bottle, but this one has a fatter neck that merges into the body of the bottle. On the neck is printed "Cheers to 20 years" and the crimpcap has the Stone gargoyle with "20 years of true craft". The front has a cool starburst behind the 20th anniversary logo. The reverse has a great deal of writing, I'm just going to post it in pictures because I'm lazy.

This is 1 pint 6 oz and 9% ABV. Let's see that head.

I will again be using a sterile plastic cup so graciously provided to me by the Holiday Inn Express. Nose from the bottle is both floral and piney with a little bit of citrus. It maintains a constant thin white head that I would attribute to the considerable life within the cup. Color is a red amber and semi translucent. Nose from the cup is also floral and piney but with more citrus characteristic than the bottle. On first sip, It is very piney at first and then it converts into an intense grapefruit that lingers as an aftertaste. It is also just a little bit sweet, not noticeably so, but just enough to be palatable and smooth out the two opposing bitter flavors. It's just like eating one of those ruby red grapefruits straight, if I had to compare it to something flavor wise. It had no acid bite, but still has a little bit of a dry acid characteristic. As I drink this, it has evolved a sourness and dry mouthfeel that did not make themselves known at first. This is a full bodied beer with medium-high gravity.

I'm listening to Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Upsetters 1976 reggae album "Super Ape". It's very chill music, Ska and Rock steady are more my style though. This music reminds me of old 1970's B movies, they almost always had music like this. It's kind of funny how only the very best and very worst movies get remembered. I suppose in the flood of media we have created in the past three centuries that there has been a sizable market for it, only the two extremes get remembered because they have something special about them. There had to be something about it that set it apart from all of the other things being made at the time. Great movies are straight pieces of art that took a great deal of work and skill to create with just the right amount of passion. B movies on the other hand, tend to only be good if there is a certain amount of passion and effort that went into the production, but it utterly failed. There are movies like "The Room" that are completely laughable because it's inept in every way, but it's funny because you can tell they actually tried but had no idea what they were doing. That's why the faked "so bad it's good" movies don't survive, they have the ineptitude of a bad movie but lack the passion and effort, you can tell when they know better. On the other hand, you have the movies that lampoon B movies without being one themselves such as "Black Dynamite", which are excellent because they don't pretend to be something they are not. It's all tongue in cheek making light of the fact that those movies were so bad without trying to pull one over on anybody. Movies like "Black Dynamite" are especially funny if you know the source material such as "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song", "Black Samson", "Hot Potato", "The Mack", "Three the hard way" And my personal favorite "Black belt Jones". I might just go watch Black Belt Jones right now.

Final thoughts, this is a great beer that really exemplifies Stone brewery. Try it out and save the bottle, it'll be a cool thing to have in 20 years. I give this beer my seal of approval.

The beers of Corona CA: Stone Enjoy By 11.25.16 IPA

I'm in Corona California for my friend Capon's wedding, figured it's a good time to grab a couple of good brews I can't get in Japan. I stopped by the Vons supermarket and this one jumped out at me along with a prohibition styled ale. I havn't reviewed a beer from Stone, so as usual, here is some information about the brewery. Stone was founded in 1996 in San Marcos CA by Steve Wagner and Greg Koch, two musicians turned beer nerds who loved the things the craft beer movement was doing and hated the crap the macro brewers were putting out. The company grew quickly thanks in no small part to their flagship Stone Pale Ale and world changing Arrogant Bastard Ale and is now the 10th largest craft brewer in the United States. Stone moved it's primary brewing operations to Escondido CA where they now produce about 325,645 annually. They also own a number of restaurants and beer gardens, a partially separate beer distribution business and recently opened a new 100 hectoliter brewery in Berlin, Germany (They are the first American craft brewer to start a second brewery in Europe) as well as a brewery in Richmond VA. They were named "#1 brewery in the world" by beer advocate a couple of years ago. I wouldn't go that far but they are certainly one of the few breweries you absolutely have to try if you love beer.

As for the "Enjoy By" series I'll be reviewing, it's one of those weird experimental brews Stone is known for. The Idea is to have an extremely fresh double IPA (or hopp grenades as I call them) with an extremely short shelf life to guarantee this freshness. It only has a shelf life of 37 days and this one expires November 25th (brewed Oct 21). I'm sure it would still be fine to drink long after that, but it would lose the characteristics the brewers were trying to give it from the 10 different verities of hopps they used. I got this in a 22 oz bomber with a bulbed neck and stones 20 year anniversary crimpcap. The bottle claims the beer is "Devistatingly fresh" in block cursive, I certainly hope so. Otherwise it is a nice green label with Stones gargoyle head and the words "Stone Enjoy By 11.25.16 IPA". The reverse is one of those little epitaphs most breweries that are worth drinking put on there bottles, on this one it reads "Our all-important, hop-driven quest to deliver the most devastatingly fresh IPA on the planet facilitated a paradigm shift in 2012 with the launch of Stone Enjoy By IPA. Not only did we brew this beer with more than 10 different hops, we brewed it specifically NOT to last. Acclaimed for its groundbreakingly short shelf life, this intense double IPA brought forth a whole new concept of what constitutes “fresh”—guaranteeing fans the ultimate level of hoppiness. This fresh serving of hopps carries out the tradition of being the freshest IPA you can bring to the table. Now that's something to be thankful for." nice little nod to Thanksgiving there. It is 9.4% ABV, so I'm going to get some food and then we'll see that head.

Now that I've got some food in my belly, It's time to review. I will be using a plastic cup 'cus I'm in a hotel room and I'm fancy like that. I don't have a refrigerator in my room so the beer has been chilling in an ice bucket. Popping the cap, nose from the bottle is extremely floral and citrusy and just a little bit dank, but that I would attribute to it being so heavy with hop oil. It forms a light white head  when poured, there is a good bit of life within the cup so it maintains it, lights and quickly dissapaiting as it is. Oh goodness the nose is fantastic when poured. It has all of the same characteristics as from the bottle but with new depth. The hopp oils have really come out. On first sip, It is intensely bitter and has a super dry finish. It has, how can I put this, it has multiple layers to it's bitterness. I find it almost impossible to describe how they are different, but they are. It's mouthfeel isn't acidic, but it's finish has an acidity to it, but also a weird creaminess leading into the dry finish. It actually has a lower medium body, which I didn't expect. I almost want to say this is like straight up eating hopp flowers, but even that isn't this intense.

So it was an interesting trip over here. I basically lived at Handeda airport for a day, which was a little confusing but I was able to figure it out thanks to having watched Jvlogers on Youtube explain allot of the things I had to deal with, like how train tickets work in Japan. But it was fine, I just hung out for a day in a pretty nice and foreigner friendly airport. Kind of got lucky with the flight and got the emergency exit row just above the wing, talk about all the leg room you could want. I got to LAX, went through customs without them discovering my jar of Philippine boll weevils and SAARS infected birds, just to discover my car rental company I reserved from would not rent to me unless I had a credit card or a return flight ticket. Those of you who know me know I don't believe in personal debt, so that was a non option, and I have some alternative means of traveling back to Japan. So long story short, I have no car and wound up taking a $150 cab ride to Corona. I got to the Holiday Inn expecting more problems, but there were none, I just had to wait for them to finish cleaning the room and went right in. At least there is one business where a reservation does not come with a bunch of untold caveats.

Currently listening to The Hellacopters. They are a Swedish garage rock band with a mid to late 70's sound. Seriously, If I did not know better I would have assumed most of their discography was made between 1974 and 1981 and sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd had a baby with the Sonic's Rendezvous band. It's kind of a shame they disbanded after 2008, but all things come to an end, they went for about 14 years, which is one heck of a run. Heck, you've got guys like Buddy holly who only had a career of 4 years but are still popular today.
Final thoughts, It's one heck of a hop grenade. It goes down like a session, but it isn't. This thing will knock you on you're butt with the ABV, but if you're a hopp lover, you won't notice. That's another thing, if you don't absolutely love hopps, stay away from this beer, it will punch you in the face with them. I officially declare it "The Sovereign King of the Hopp Grenades" and give it my seal of approval.