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.