Stone Epic series

[rhoadsrage]

I don't cellar a lot of beers in verticals but I got about 1/2 of the Stone epics.  I didn't see any other places on the intertubes that had discussions about them.  I have kept mine at 55 degree F for there time and will review the ones I have.  Please share your thoughts as you review them. 

http://vimeo.com/54641949#

that Sasquatch (Greg Koch) can make some good beers, bit I was really hoping for more surprise coming out of the early ones.  I have only read the review of '02,03',04.  I hate the comment on 1:18 where the guy says all these beers have helped up if they are under pristine refrigeration.    To me that is not cellaring them,  keeping them at "cellar" temp so that they age gracefully is cellaring. 

 

[GatorBeerGeek]

Looks like a friend will be bringing 06-12 to a tasting I will be at Saturday.  There will likely be close to 10 of us at the tasting, so if any of them did not survive very well due to lack of refrigeration at least we won't have a lot of it to drink.

[fRed Scare]

Looks like a friend will be bringing 06-12 to a tasting I will be at Saturday.  There will likely be close to 10 of us at the tasting, so if any of them did not survive very well due to lack of refrigeration at least we won't have a lot of it to drink.

I'd be worried about 07.  That one was pretty light, IIRC.

[GatorBeerGeek]

We ended up having everything but 02 last night.  Oddly 03 was one of the better ones.  It seemed the ones that people still liked were 03, 09, and 10.  Personally, I did not like the 09 but the other 2 were my favorites.  12 was fucking disgusting.  Way too much spicing going on and it just did not go well together.  Our 05 bottle was an oxidized mess.  08 was not bad, but it was nowhere near as good as when I had it a little over 2 years ago.

We had 10 little plastic cups that were about 3/4 full each.  Since there were 8 of us I assume they were 3 oz cups.  I ended up pouring out 4 full cups of beer.  So overall most of them were bad enough to drain pour for me and many of the other participants.  I am glad I got to give it a try, but I would not bother to do it again.  I will make sure to drink the bottles of 10 I still have.  Not looking forward to opening any of the others.  Luckily, I never bought a bottle of 12.

[Phish]

Yikes.  I still have bottles of '04 and '06 left.  Guess it's time to take my medicine.

[Tip Top]

Yikes.  I still have bottles of '04 and '06 left.  Guess it's time to take my medicine.

Pretty sure I have 04-08.

[rhoadsrage]

Thanks for the sacrifice gatr.  Once I get my tastebuds back I will be diving into this trainwreck.  But now it is going to be like watching "The Crying Game" when you know the ending.  I will be wincing at each vintage.

[rhoadsrage]

07.07.07
When I had this fresh it was a bit of a train-wreck with cardamom and sugar clashing with the wine wine alcohol flavors.  I had hoped that the yeast character would have developed and the spices and alcohol would settle in.  But the cardamom and ginger stayed strong as the rest of the beer thinned.  No real help from the yeast and it is now has lots of qualities of old-time aftershave.

[rhoadsrage]

08.08.08
Fresh I didn't think this had nearly the hops that the bottle raved about and as it aged, there were only hints of some fruity esters from the yeast and a slight phenolic in the finish.  It is watery and about how you would expect a Belgian IPA to taste after 4 years.  It was very informative though.  I get a stale taste in the back of the throat in some Belgian beers that I always thought was a "stale" taste.  I could really taste it in this beer.  It is not so much a cardboard or woody oxidation but more like bad breath??

[rhoadsrage]

09.09.09
the Belgian stout.  Fresh, I thought this beer had a nice velvety texture with some depth to the rich chocolate malt and some fruity hops that were interesting.  Aged it was really thin with the chocolate malt being the only dimension that survived.
(and no my window isn't that dirty, it is ice frozen to the screen)

[Mark]

A friend of mine here in St. Louis has two of the entire series (yes, even '02) and we'll be doing a big vertical soon. I don't expect most of 'em to be good.

[Phish]

Great info RhoadsRage.  Really appreciate the info and the pics.

[rhoadsrage]

10.10.10
The Tripel with Muscat grapes.  Sounds like a perfect combination to me but a very tricky one to execute.  Drinking this fresh I really liked the depth of hops and white wine tannins but I though the Tripel yeast esters were too soft and could have used a touch more sweetness for me.  Also the fizz was a bit to big and scrubbed some of the flavor.

Drinking this aged, the hops were gone and the grape skins stayed subtle with the abbey yeast character never really showing up (maybe that is the theme they were going for in this whole series).  It was nice but just underwelming. 

[rhoadsrage]

11.11.11
The Chili Barleywine

When I drank this fresh, I thought it had a nice chile flavor but was a bit to vegital and there were some notes of a Dubbel in the malt bill and the cinnamon was much more hidden. 

When I tried this recently, the chili was a much better flavor losing some of the vegital qualities and the cinnamon showed through a bit more.  The caramel malt had a bit of sweetness but not much.  This is probably my most enjoyed of the series (that I have tried).  And it is more of a barleywine with chiles that a dubble. 

[rhoadsrage]

12.12.12
Time to clean out the spice cabinet, and put this series to bed beer. 

Thank god I only had to buy 1 bottle of this.  It is very difficult to spice a beer and that difficulty factor grows greater with each spice you add to the mix.  This was a mess of ginger,clove,allspice,anise and a big spice/roasted black malt bitterness in the finish.  I didn't get any malt or hops or yeast character coming through. 

The whole series really didn't have any yeast character that I would consider "Belgian inspired".  I was kind of hoping the yeast would create some "fireworks" as they aged.  Maybe some brett. or lacto. bugs were snuck into the bottles to flourish, but nada.  Perhaps "Belgian inspired" meant they shouldn't be afraid to take risks and try new things but you have to make a lot of mistakes before you can paint a Picasso.  I just don't want to have to drink all your mistakes. 

[Phish]

Great work.

I just pulled an '04 from the cellar.  I'll post the results when I get to it.

[rhoadsrage]

Nice.  The Thick Freakness just sent me '05 & '06 so I will post those aswell.