Stone Old Guardian (2013 Vintage)

Brewed By: Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California

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

Style/ABV: American Barleywine, 11.6% 
Reported IBUs: 80

Another night...another beer. 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 Old Guardian page, you can get Stone's breakdown of this beer. The 2013 Old Guardian is described as excessive....clocking in at 11.6% ABV, and punching 80 IBUs..this one is described as malty and hoppy. 

Stone Old Guardian (2013 Vintage)

In low/crappy light this pours a murky, dark-orange color, with two fingers of sticky, amber-colored head. In bright light, this beer is a lovely dark orange color -- maybe a slight haze -- with mid to large sized bubbles streaming upwards at a moderate pace. The orange-tinted head is sticking around, and leaving some incredibly dense lacing as it drops off.

There's some good smells here. I'm getting tons of thick, resinous, pine sap and maple syrup. There's thick caramel, toffee, molasses, a touch of honey, a touch of marmalade, and some fat citrus and tropical fruits. I'm getting orange, tangerine, and big pineapple. There's also a dash of nutty character.

So...as I kind of expected, this is pretty hop-forward. I'm definitely gonna let it warm up for another half hour, but at the moment: this has vicious hop bite, with big resinous citrus, pineapple, and tons of burnt caramel and burnt sugar. The back is bitter and drying, and the whole thing is surprisingly not that sweet for 11.6%. As this warms up, the malts do start to pop a bit more. Now I'm getting brown sugar, sweet caramel/toffee, and a much more rounded malt vs. hops balance.

This is an aggressive beer. The 11.6% is hidden well, but this does warm you up. There's maybe a hint of booze throughout. There's certainly a big hop punch to this beer, and plenty of sticky-sweet residual sugars that end up coating your mouth and lips. This is full-bodied, has good palate depth, but just moderate complexity. This definitely improves as it warms, I'm curious to see how this will taste with a year or two of age on it. Up front is big sweet citrus, resinous pineapple, and burnt sugar; this rolls into some pine, pine sap, more burnt sugar; the back end is lingering resinous hops, astringent/bitter finish.

Rating: Average (3.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Strong Average here. This is very much an American-style Barleywine, with a dominating hop presence, but it's just a touch distracting. Maybe that's just me speaking, but I dunno. I love Barleywines, and I love hoppy beers. Maybe with a bit of time this one will lose some of the hop bite and pick up some more malt kick. Either way...This beer is strong enough to stand up to aggressive foods, so pair this with some blue cheese, bacon, red meats, strong cheese, etc. This is definitely a sipper, but drinkability is fine for the style. Ideally, you would snag two bottles of this. Drink one fresh, and camp on that second bottle for 1-3 years. All things considered, this is still worth trying at around 7 or 8 dollars a bomber.

Random Thought: TGIF. That's all.