Stone Brewing - Why Does Everyone Love Them?

What do you have in mind? Perhaps sharing can help the situation.

 

my .02...

I think they are right up there with Anchor and Sierra Nevada as OGs to at least respect. Thunderstruck stands out recently. Enjoy By is always enjoyable.

They have a few misses, but the bar is set pretty high for them at this point. And we wouldn't be where we are right now in craft beer without them (you can even limit that simply to Stone Distribution, not even their beer). With the volume they produce of some of their beers, the consistency from bottle to bottle is a marvel itself.

 

And then there's Dr. Bill...

 

They still use Pliny as a measuring stick out there, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

 

Stone was my gateway drug into craft. I drank a shit ton of ruination, Russian imperial stone and double bastard in 2007-08 then I got sick of them and branched out. However, in last couple years I have found myself going back to Stone. Big fan of Enjoy By and Unfiltered. Plus i don't think they will ever sell out to big beer and I find that oh so comforting.

 

Treehouse is making some of my favorite IPAs at the moment, but as @Catchy_Name said, without early hop bomb pioneers like Stone, the East Coast would still be drinking Hop Devil and Finest Kind (old East Coast style, tons of Caramel malt and not much hops). I always liked craft, but it was my first Arrogant Bastard bomber in 2004 that made me a true hop head.

 

Because it's good and widely distributed like Lagunitas; both are my go-to's when I just need a beer.

 

I think @chrisjws covered a lot of the big ones.

-Pioneers. Arguably one of THE breweries to make IPA/hops what American (craft) beer is known for. After all these years, I still think a fresh bottle of Stone IPA is friggin' glorious.

-Freshness. This one is huge. They print a bottled date, which is nice, but more importantly their standard for hoppy beer is 90 days. To commit to pulling stuff off shelves/managing distribution to regularly achieve shelf (hoppy) beer < 90 days old is pretty damn impressive. I see so many breweries -- even ones I really enjoy -- who have shelf life standards that are twice that. Sorry, but an IPA at 5 months isn't something I'm interested in. Kudos to Stone for putting their money where their mouth is.

-Distribution. Look, I've had some TH, Trillium, etc. beers that are great. But they don't distribute out West. They don't distribute to their neighboring states. Hell, they don't distribute outside their towns, if they even leave the brewery at all. It's awful hard to read folks complain about how average Stone IPA or Sculpin is when they find a 2-month old bottle on a shelf and then extol the virtues of a local IPA they literally pulled from the canning line. Stone's distro is incredibly impressive. Have you ever drank Stone IPA or whatever at the source? Have you ever had your favorite at TH/Trillium/whatever beer at 2-months after sitting on a store shelf? Until you have, I think it's a pretty tough compairson to make.

 

I like Stone for the same reason I like any other brewery that I like- they make some beers that I enjoy drinking. It's not all that complicated.

 

Because they've always pushed the boundaries..

Back in 1997/98 Arrogant Bastard was unlike any other beer out there and was the inspiration for so many big over the top hoppy beers.

One of the first breweries to widely release one off experimental beers and to widely release beers with an eye on aging. Who was doing that when the vertical epic series started?

They put the focus on fresh ipa's when most breweries weren't even dating their bottles (many still don't)

Most recently they opened a true american craft brewery in Germany. On their own terms. How many other craft breweries have done that?

 

Agree with all of this. People are taking a nationally distributed brewery that they bought down at BevMo and lamenting that it doesn't taste as good as the hype IPA they waited in line 6 hours for and pre rated a 5 before they tasted it. Fact is I'd put Enjoy By up there with the best IPAs in the game, limited releases like RuinTen and Xocoveza are kickass, and their barrel stuff is widely overlooked and underrated (BA Stone IRS would be a huge get if it was waxed and limited to appeal to the hype crowd).

Are they my favorite brewery? No, and probably not the first IPA I'll pick up. But they're making consistent top quality beer in damned near every style that you can go pick up at any liquor store in half of the country. Compared to some of the other large super regional breweries they are offering a far more interesting and diverse beer line.

The fact that someone from New York feels compelled to compare the biggest hype IPAs from their region to an easy to get widely distributed beer from across the country says volumes about the quality of the product they're putting out.

 

I'd like to have an opinion on Northeast IPAs, but I can't buy them off the shelf here. Please send me some for research purposes.

 

I quite enjoy Go To with its Citra and Mosaic dry hopping, especially at it's low ABV. And if I wanna go bigger, I like me some Ruination 2.0...

Between those, other crappy shelfies like Lagunitas Born Yesterday, and outstanding releases from Beachwood and Noble, I have no inclination to chose mega turbid orange juice look-alikes from across the country.

 

stone, for me, has been a consistently good and available selection of beers through the years. I echo the above comments about quality: find an old beer at a retail, hit their website and the local rep takes care of it. I've even had them contact me directly about it before and these local reps have helped me find good beer spots when I've traveled as well. I know most stone beer I find is fresh and if its not, they take care of it.

What really won me however was my first trip to the Escondido bistro. Not only did they have their beers on, but they had a wide swath of craft beer from everywhere and in multiple styles. To me, Stone is a great craft beer advocate...

 

Although some of the Stone ales are a little hoppy for my tastes, I feel that all of their beers are high quality products. They all have a big malt foundation. My personal favorites are the Smoked Porter, Pale Ale, Cali-Belgique, and Arogant Bastard. I really like the silk-screened bottles (these bottles add to the perception of quality). Also, I believe that they are still independent (amazing, considering the consolation that is currently taking place). Stone is a great brewery!!!

 

New breweries releasing excellent brews while Stone maintains the same good vs 'swing and miss' ratio they've always had.

 

Couldn't agree more. Also, big 4 brewers fan, keep up the good work!

 

Opened a Fyodor's Classic tonight and it's excellent. Reminded me that Stone does indeed make some of the best beer out there.

 

Fuck you! And everyone. Or something.