The Anniversary Ale pours a nice thick head with a dark warm color not much head retention with this ale. The hops stand out with this brew and there are subtle hints of spices, honey and pine to it. A nice aroma from this strong ale.

The Stone 13th Anniversary tastes great! There is a nice sweet flavor that combines the bitterness of the hops with the sweetness of the spices and pine. The high alcohol content provides a nice warm feel going down. The taste is unique, you can tell this beer was definitely brewed outside of the box. Overall, a smooth beer that has great drinkability for such a strong beer.

Stones Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale started as Stone 11th Anniversary Ale. People loved the Ale so much that they decided to remake the beer and bring it back.

The beer pours a dark brown almost black color. Through the thinner parts you can see a brownish red tint to the beer. There was a large amount of head (roughly 3 fingers) that was creamy mellow tan with a foamy texture. The head sat still when I swirled the glass but the bubbles faded quickly.

The smell was nothing like I expected from such a dark ale. I mostly smelled hops and didn’t want to wait for the head to dissipate to open up the aromas. It had a very citrus grapefruit like smell with a tiny hint of sweetness.

The taste was another shocking wave of deliciousness. It starts off with the alcohol making it warm and inviting but not overpowering. It was very rich and malty, the bitterness made this a very interesting experience for your senses. It’s hard to describe but the beer just tastes exceptional. For those of you that think higher alcohol complex beers are hard to drink, you should try this one. Your brain will be questioning if you are enjoying an IPA, a stout, or some type of strong ale.

Great job with this Stone Brewing, we hope you re-produce many of your limited release beers for us Stone Brewery lovers!

Each Vertical Epic beer is designed to drink sometime after 12.12.12 (end of the world?) for a “truly epic tasting”. If you had all 10 bottles, it would be an experience maybe 3 or 4 will get to try. They use very interesting ingredients and release them as homebrew recipes usually a month or so after their release. I have tasted every vertical epic since 06.06.06 and really appreciated the delicious chocolate Vertical Epic released for 09. We picked up 8 or 9 bottles hoping to save some… First 4 and then we had to grab more… There’s only 1 left… This is a great beer and I really hope they add this to their “regularly produced” list.

The beer poured a very dark espresso color and is pitch black in our glasses. The head was very creamy and it had a nitrogen appearance which was really surprising.

It has a citrus swiss chocolate smell like a sweet candy. It reminds me of chocolate covered orange peels that I used to eat as a kid.

The taste was exceptional. It has a strong coffee chocolate flavor with a very smooth creamy texture. The citrus creates a nice bitterness that combined with the burnt malty chocolate is DELICIOUS. I knew there was no way our bottles were going to last after that taste.

I think my last bottle is going to last through the day… Thanks Stone Brewing!

Another beer we tried while In CA was the Cali Belgie from Stone which is a specialty IPA with a Belgian influence, the yeast is special Belgian strain that offers a unique taste.
We picked this beer up at Stone while out at the brewery for a special release of the vertical epic series where we were lucky enough to try the Vertical Epic 06.06.06 beer which was a nice spiced seasonal beer.

The IPA pours a nice golden color with about two fingers of head and great lacing that sticks to the glass. Cali Belgie has a very fresh hoppy aroma with faint hints of the imported yeast, nice smooth taste and great mouth feel. This great blend of ingredients brings together a high quality IPA with a sophisticated taste that has subtle hints of citrus.

A very tasty and unique IPA indeed.

The beer has 100% Kona Coffee and Macadamia nut. The beer was very dark and poured with excellent dark malty head. It has a very strong smell with higher alcohol than most porters. The beer had intense flavor with a strong coffee/espresso like taste topped off with a rich sweet nutty finish. It was better than we expected. If you like dark beers, coconut, chocolate, etc this is an excellent choice!