Name – Stone 09.09.09 Vertical Epic Ale
Country – United States
Type – Belgian Strong Dark Ale
Appearance – Pours a dark brown with dark red highlights. A nice light brown head that left some lacing on the glass.
Smell – Dark fruits are predominant with some smokey qualities to it as well.
Taste – A lot seemingly going on here. Picking up dark fruits, roasted malts, some slight smokiness and a bit of chocolate.
I had been waiting for this for awhile as this is my first of the Stone Vertical series. I really wish I would have been into beer earlier to collect all of them and age them to the right point for the epic vertical tasting but alas I can not. But I did pick up a few extra bottles with the hopes of aging them and see where they are at over time. Overall I thought it was a good beer. Nothing absolutely amazing stood out but nothing fell flat either. A good example of the style.
Overall Grade – B
5 Comments
I did the same thing – I drank it right away and was a little disappointed. But you can taste its potential and I think this will be a great beer in a few years. But so far I haven’t been able to age anything. For some reason thing just don’t last that long… 🙂
October 7, 2009 at 9:43 amI haven’t tried aging something before and I know what you mean about them disappearing. I might have to use my parents house for this so I don’t have to see them. Definitely out of site, out of mind.
October 7, 2009 at 10:15 amI don’t know if you saw my review or not Mike, but I kind of felt the same way as you. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but didn’t find it to be world class beer. Sometimes folks misinterpret a B rating as the reviewer saying they didn’t enjoy it…I caught a little flack from a few folks (not in the comments section) who assumed because I didn’t give it an A+ I was saying it was bad. Anyway, good review!
October 9, 2009 at 8:31 amThanks Nate. I saw your review on it and I know some of my friends view me as a bit of a Stone fan boy but I’ll be honest when I have something that isn’t amazing.
I know what you mean by the mark. B is still a respectable mark in my eyes. With C being average a B is still really good. If I thought it was bad it would be under a C. Don’t worry about “da hatas.” haha
October 9, 2009 at 6:04 pmHey, they all can’t be A+ beers right? Sometimes it comes down to being between really good and great. Pretty cool concept there by Stone.
October 9, 2009 at 8:26 pm