Stone Double Bastard Ale

Brewed By: Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California

Purchased: 22oz bottle bought at Binny's in IL; 2013

Style/ABV: American Strong Ale, 11.2% 
Reported IBUs: ?

Arrogant Bastard Ale is one of my favorite beers, so it follows that the Double Bastard Ale would be up there. Right? About Stone:

Stone Brewing are one of the more prominent breweries in the American craft brewing scene. They were founded in 1996 in San Marcos, California, and moved to Escondido, California where they recently expanded their operations. Stone was founded by Steve Wagner and Greg Koch. Koch has a reputation among the craft beer community for voicing his opinion, not putting up with shit, and standing behind his beer. 

If you roll over to the Double Bastard page, you can get Stone's typical wall-of-text about this beer. You know: you're not worthy, you pleb mortal. You can't handle this 11.2% beer, with "classified hops." I do like the bottle, which has the definition of "diatribe" on the back, along with a warning that this beer is "Liquid Arrogance." Liquid Arrogance? That's better than a hop pun! Let's glass this up.

Stone Double Bastard Ale

This beer pours a copper/amber color in low light, with a finger of lightly tan/khaki head. In bright light this beer's body is a rich orange/amber color, and the head (which is sustaining nicely) still has some amber/khaki tones. Not only do I see moderate carbonation in this, but it looks like there might be some sediment in here as well.

The nose on this beer is really sweet, with tons of sugary citrus, pine sap, maple syrup and pancakes, cake batter, pine, and maybe a touch of herbal/earthy hop kick. There's a little caramel, nuttiness, sugar, and boozy complexity on the nose as well. It reminds me of an aged Barleywine, with fat resinous hops and big malts just hitting your palate like a fat kid hitting the surface of a pool in slow motion while doing a belly flop.

Wow. The first few sips of this are super sweet, with lazy carbonation and a sticky/syrupy mouthfeel. Big malt sweetness drives the first couple of sips. But by the third or fourth sip, the hops really start to kick in and do their thing. I'm getting immense citrus, grapefruit rind, and wood on the back end, along with dryness and some alcohol heat. The heat and hops really dry out the finish. You do get pine sap, cake batter, caramel, and brown sugar on the front of this, along with some sweeter orange citrus and apricot. By mid palate the bitterness picks up, and the back end is just intense bittering and dryness.

I should note that the mouthfeel on this is sticky, syrupy, and dense. This is full-bodied, and definitely a sipper at 11.2%. You do pick up some heat on this. There is some carbonation to smooth things out, and the hop kick and dryness cleans things up towards the back. It never feels overly sticky or sweet. Palate depth is outstanding on this. Each sip takes 15+ seconds to go from malty sweet, spicy and bitter, to bitter and dry. Complexity is nice too, with pine sap, caramel, and sugary malts up front; brown sugar, earthy hops, spice, and bitter hops in the middle; and intense grapefruit, citrus rind, dryness, and alcohol heat on the back. This is every bit as extreme as an 11.2% beer should be.

Rating: Divine Brew (4.5/5 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Divine Brew on this. I like this. Not all the time, but some of the time. I feel like this would age well, like a Barleywine. This is a great sipping beer, and compares similarly to beers like the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. You can pair this beer with very strong spices, hot peppers, chicken wings, carrot cake, and maybe even with an earthy cigar. Honestly though, I'm pegging this at over 100+ IBUs, so this is going to wreck your palate one way or another. This might just be a dessert beer to sip on. Get out your snifter folks. No joke, this one cost like 7 or 8 bucks. That is highway robbery. At that price, buy a couple of these.

Random Thought: Annnnd the Bulls got fucked sideways tonight in Game 2 against the Heat. No surprise there. Will they come back and step it up in Game 3? Meh.