Stone IPA Pairing with Politics

Jesus H Christ. At this point, we have to stop saying, “Well, 2020 can’t possibly get any worse, because then it fucking does! With last Friday’s passing of the Notorious RBG (as she was known in some circles), the future of America’s constitutional freedoms has been thrown into a state of entropy. If you’re a woman, a person of color, LBGTQ, an immigrant, etc., of course.

Instead of a pioneer of rights for women, we’ve got some crazy bitch in a Catholic adjacent cult who reports to a fucking handmaid. All of this happened within two weeks. All of this after the major fucking hypocrisy of 2016 when Senate Republicans refused to consider President Obama’s SCOTUS pick of Merrick Garland to replace the then retiring justice, Anthony Kennedy. Their logic was that a president should not be able to select a justice in an election year. 

Well, well, well. Funny how quickly the mental gymnastics began when RBG’s seat opened up less than 50 days before a fucking election! We’ve got Lady G (Lindsay Graham to those of you who aren’t embittered by the news cycle) on video saying, please use his words against him in the future. Oh Moscow Mitch, how low you have fallen. The man is so evil, even his daughters no longer speak to him, so that’s something I guess. 

No time to sign another stimulus bill to assist the 870,000 unemployed/furloughed/underemployed Americans that’s been sitting on that chinless fucks desk for months. Oh no. But let’s get a judge and own them libs. Amirite! Seriously though, Mitch, all that money and you can’t even buy yourself a decent chin? 

When asked if Dumples would leave the White House peacefully, should he lose, his response was, “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.” And “(G)et rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very … there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation,” he added, saying, “the ballots are out of control.” Hey American White women, look what you all did!

On another shitty note, a grand jury voted to not charge the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her bed. But the one dude got a slap on the wrist for firing into the apartment wall and disturbing the neighbors. Are you angry yet?

Oh, and California is still on fire. 

On some happier news, The New York Times has released the first of what they promise is a series of articles on Donny Two Scoops tax returns. Big surprise to absolutely no one, the man is in massive debt, and his wealth is a complete sham. Several significant loans will become due soon, leaving us in a position of possibly having a sitting president in serious default. The most upsetting thing is that somehow he sort of maybe wrote off $70k for haircuts tied to television dollars. Just think about that for a minute. That dead ferret masquerading as a lousy weave is what $70k got him. Imagine if he had spent less. 

The first presidential debate between Dump and Uncle Joe was last night. A 74-year-old pussy-grabbing con artist goes up against a 77-year-old dude who didn’t believe Anita Hill. As Dumpt telling white supremacist groups, we had such gems, “Proud boys, stand back and stand by.” That’s right, our president refused to condemn Nazis on live tv. Don’t blame me, I voted for Warren. Where will we be in another two weeks? With my rate of drinking, probably hospitalized for cirrhosis. 

This week’s offering comes from a brewery Nerdy has written about lately, with a bit of vitriol I might add: Stone Brewing. Long story short, a few music bros got together over and decided California beer was terrible; thus, Stone IPA was born. Now, normally, this is the part of the article where I give a little history of the brewery. Still, I was so impressed with their website History section, I’m linking it here. 

I needed something strong this week, and at 6.9%, I was ready for a buzz. Plus, I’ve had a few Stone beers before, and they are quintessential West Coast IPA, which is exactly what I’ve been missing in Los Angeles.

So, I’m sure the first thing you notice in the picture isn’t even the beer, but the upside-down label on the bottle. I’ll admit, that did catch my eye while browsing the cold cases at my local corner store as well. I am a sucker for a good label, but aren’t we all? The whole not judging a book by its cover only applies to people, IMO, but a pretty beer label gets me going.

The upside-down label was intentional, but Stone didn’t address it for a month and a half. It’s a marketing campaign entitled “Leave No Stone Unturned.” I understand the point is that once you’ve reached your last tipple (bottoms up), the label will be right side up, but I think this misses the mark. Only an uncultured plebian drinks beer out of the bottle, and the image of turning a filled bottle upside down leads to foaming issues. Leave it to me to ruin the fun.

This is a pretty beer. Yes, I said pretty, fuck off. A bubbling hazy golden amber liquid topped by a thick offwhite whipped cream head, beautiful. The bubbles popped and fizzled from this beer like the percussion section at the Philharmonic. I was mildly disappointed by the aromas, or lack of, from Stone IPA. The nose was quite mild, even after a few whiffs. I detected notes of bitter lemon/lime and slightly burnt bread. I had been hoping for some floral notes as well. I do appreciate that in a beer, but not today, Satan. However, the lack of floral aromas was quickly forgotten after the first sip of this hoppy liquid delight. This medium viscosity bread soda slid down my throat smoother than a hooker on silk sheets. 

And what of the taste? Oh, yes, the taste. This is a 100% true West Coast IPA. I have found you!

Stone is a very complex beer; there is a lot to unpack here:

-Burnt bread with creamy butter. Weird, I know, but it works. There is no toasted malt in this, so how Stone got a burnt toast in my beer is a mystery, but a good one! I appreciate the toast over a yeasty flavor in a hoppy beer.

-Tropical fruit salad. Again weird, I know, but it totally works. I don’t like tropical fruity IPAs. As my many rants against NEIPAs have shown, but when I picked up tastes of papaya, guava, and passionfruit, I was elated. The notes were fruity without being sweet like a proper seltzer should be. They were also more in the background, so I really had to dig to pick them out.

-Grapefruit rind. Well, this is a given, if an IPA doesn’t have bitter notes akin to some sort of citrus, throw the whole thing out. The grapefruit helped to balance out the tropical fruit salad waves.

-Vibrant piney resin. You betcha, I said, vibrant. If you want to lick a pine tree air freshener, minus the inevitable wet cardboard (are those things made of cardboard?), this is definitely for you.

-Malt heavy but no sweetness. The massive hop bitterness covers up any cloying notes. I don’t like malt-forward beers. But obviously, with a higher ABV beer, you have to use malt to up the booze. That vibrant (I love using that word) resiny notes really cover up any malty sweetness.

I liked this beer. I liked this beer a lot. It’s not the hoppiest offering from Stone and not the highest ABV the have, but it’s definitely an excellent west coast specimen. And who doesn’t love a demonic symbol on their beer? As a card-carrying member of the Satanic Temple, I certainly do.

4 out of 5 WTF happened in last night’s presidential debate.