Slightly hazy, pale orange-tinged with a short-lived, loose head, Stone Ruination IPA delivers a candy-like sweet aroma laced with lemon and grapefruit citric stylings. Well, it would, wouldn't it? Despite the label's warning that my palate might be ruined by this 7.7%er, I found it rather tamer than I expected. That's not to say that it isn't crammed with big, fresh hop flavours, with that sherbety zing behind the grapefruit dryness that I like in my favourite American IPAs. The sherbet effect increases as it goes down, but it does begin to become a little one-dimensional. Despite that, it has the right levels of soft caramel sweetness, balanced with the classic drying grapefruit bitterness of an American IPA, to make it very easy to knock back, despite the relatively high ABV.
Good beer. I found it tamer drinking back in the UK than when I first tried it in California.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if it had "tamed" during transit, but it was bought in Virginia and flown directly to my beer stash. Might be more ruinitious (that can't be a word) fresh :D
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