Stone Delicious IPA

Brewed By: Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California

Purchased: 12oz bottle from a Stone variety pack bought at Jewel-Osco in Chicago, IL; 2015 (Enjoy By 4/22/2015)

Style/ABV: American IPA, 7.7% 
Reported IBUs: 80

How about them Gluten-free IPAs. 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. Also...farking woot and fizzy yellow beer is for bitches. 

The Delicious IPA is your typical Stone IPA offering...except it is gluten-free and brewed with the lemony and spicy Lemondrop and El Dorado hop varietals. 

Stone Delicious IPA

This is a juicy yellow-orange, slightly hazy, hop-fueled affair. The head is thick and authoritative, like your grade school lunch lady. This laces better than shoes and Spider-Man's web shooters on dates with Mary Jane. It looks like many Stone beers.

This has a nice aroma, with white pepper, tropical fruit, and pineapple. There's a cracker note on the aroma, and then you get hit with some nice tobacco/hemp/weed. This has appreciable dankness and would pair well with your hasheesh. 4/22 blaze it.

Stone hasn't deviated much from their IPA with this beer, but that's not a bad thing. Stone's IPA is still a classic beer, and their Ruination IPA is up there. This feels very much in the same format, with over-the-top malts providing a sweet caramel contrast to giant American hops. You get resinous lemons, some cut grass, pithy tropical fruits, huge guava and hemp on the back end, and tons of dank as fuck resin. There's a peach note in this beer, and the fruits just keep on coming. It's fruity, juicy, and the bitterness is dank.

This is a medium-bodied, bitter, sticky-sweet, high-carbed IPA. It's in the realm of your typical West Coast offerings and can hold its own against your Lagunitas' IPA or Green Flash IPA. At 7.7%, I'm not getting a ton of alcohol in this. However, this is definitely a heavier IPA. This beer will stand up to strongly spiced foods. The palate depth is good, and this has good complexity. You get a lot of lemons and fruity notes up front; the mids roll into hops and sweetness (I'm getting some of the Yellow/Lemon Starburst that Stone claims you can taste); the back end drops appreciable spice and drying bitterness. Dank, hoppy, dry, spicy. Good.

Rating: Above-Average (4.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'll toss this a Strong Above-Average. Not a bad IPA from Stone. I would buy a 6-pack of this during the warmer months to have on hand. Drink it fresh, pair it with strong, assertive foods.

Random Thought: I just finished my final paper for the Winter quarter. I feel pretty good about that.