Beer Spotlight!

Stone Downunderstruck IPA

$16.99 for the 16oz four-pack cans
Double IPA

Stone’s official history says that when Greg Koch and and Steve Wagner founded Stone Brewing Company in San Marcos, CA, in 1996, they did so with a “mission” to provide “flavorful” alternatives to the beer available at the time. We think that’s a polite way of saying it. It didn’t seem to be so much a mission … as a crusade.

Also, “flavorful” meant hops — a full, voracious, unabashed, ecstatic embrace of Pacific Northwest hops. In fact, while not having made the first American IPA, Stone probably did more than anyone else to shape the nature of that bitter beast. These are the guys who called their legendary Ruination IPA, “a liquid poem to the glory of the hop.” Though St. Arnold is actually the patron saint of brewers and hop pickers in Belgium, in the United States, the patron saint of hops should be Saint Stone.

So, that’s what’s behind things when we say, leave it to Stone to take an IPA made with only Australian hops — known for their fruity and floral characteristics — and smack you with a bracing bitter backhand that not even John McEnroe would argue over. Almost no one else makes IPAs like this anymore. It’s a beautiful hop blast from the past that hits you fast and lingers and lasts!

Remember!

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