Stone Ruination IPA

This is one of the three I bought last week while I waited for the smog check to get done on my car. I drank it Sunday night while I was boiling my homebrew Stout. I chose it because the bottle said it was unbelievably hoppy (100+ IBUs!!!), and man, they were right. I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing, though.

My thoughts:

Appearance - It's orange/amber, and quite cloudy. The head is less than a finger, and it dissapates quickly.

Aroma - It smells like hop pellets right out of the package, and I should know because I had a fresh package of hops to compare it to. There's some citrus buried in there, but it's not evident at first.

Flavor - How do I say this without incriminating myself? This sh*t tastes like marijuana. My excuses for knowing this are A) I was an RA in college and busted my fair share of potheads and B) living in California where it's practically legal anyway, I've befriended my fair share of people with medicinal marijuana licenses. But seriously, the hops are just overpowering. And I love hops, so if I'm telling you it's too much, it's too much. I couldn't pick any other flavors out. Hey, I'm new at this. And they brag right on the bottle that this beer will destroy your palette.

Mouthfeel - It burns. I will say there's more carbonation that I expected.

Drinkability - This is not a session beer. I find myself craving meat and potatoes while I drink it, and I think it would be delicious with a nice heavy meal. I split a 22 oz bottle with my husband, and that's enough for me.




So I realize this all sounds kind of negative. This isn't a bad beer, and I'm sure people who really, really love hops will enjoy it. My husband thought it was great. It's just the kind of beer that there's a time and a place for. I'd definitely drink it again, though I doubt it will ever be the first bottle I reach for on a lazy Sunday evening.

Pyramid Thunderhead IPA

While grocery shopping today I picked up a couple six-packs of beers I've never tried. Since the selection at Safeway isn't nearly as good as the one at BevMo, I didn't have much to go with.

My first pick was Pyramid Thunderhead IPA, because I like IPAs. They've got a brewery in Berkeley (along with Seattle and Portland), so I'm in keeping with my recent local beer theme.

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot to say about this beer. It's mild, and drinkable in that it doesn't have any of the strong flavors that might turn you off. But overall I find it fairly lackluster, and I've definitely had better IPAs.

My detailed thoughts:

Appearance - It poured a pretty light amber, with just a slight haze. A small but steady stream of bubbles rose to a 1-finger head, but that narrowed to a very thin cap within 2 minutes.

Smell - Very light. I asked my husband for help on this one given my well-documented problems with this category. He detected a little fruityness, and something herbal. All I smelled was beer.

Flavor - It's like a toned down IPA. There's very little bite and no complexity. There's flavor there, it's just very muted.

Mouth Feel - There's enough carbonation to leave a tingle on your tongue. I won't call it light-bodied, but it's definitely lighter than expected.

Drinkability - As stated before, this is drinkable the way Bud Light is drinkable. There just isn't enough flavor there to slow you down.