Why no Love for Stone?

5500+ breweries ... lots of tap rooms have opened in the last several years around the country. Brand loyalty is hard to come by as well.

FWIW ... today I just grabbed a sixer of the Ghost Hammer with a canned date of 06.08.17 in Revere, Mass LOL!!!!!! I can't find most local beer on the shelves that fresh in the immediate area.

 

Agree in most respects, the market is over saturated with good suds and tastes do vary.
When it is at the end of the day most of us seek good balance and Stone hits those notes
on some and fails on others. I can appreciate them for what they are, an original, but the
extreme selection out there makes them fall a touch on the meter. That said I still say they are
a worthy brew for a great price for the most part.

 

The problem is that it is not a pilsner. It's an IPL, really, which is fine, but I want truth in advertisement (and I hate it when this frivolity creeps into other styles as well, not just more subtle styles like Pils).

People that either don't know what a pilsner is or think that Miller Lite is a pilsner (it does say so on the can after all), have Wussie, and love it will then go on to judge every other pilsner by the standard that Wussie set, which is ignorant and ill-informed; they'll try such legendary beers as Pilsner Urquell, Czechvar, Ayinger Pils, Koenig Pils, Bitburger, Jever, Weihenstephan Pils, Praga Pils, etc. and claim them to be bland and flavorless in comparison to Wussie, which would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

I'm not saying you can't like the beer, but it's not a pilsner, no matter what Stone says. I even give stuff like Victory Prima Pils a break because at least it still has malt complexity. Wussie is all hops with such a scant malt bill that it may has well have used two-row and an ale yeast.

If you like Wussie, more power to you, but don't tell me it's your favorite pilsner, because that just tells me you don't know what a pilsner is.

And to boundary-pushing, I am all for it, but you should state plainly what the beer is and isn't somewhere so the consumer knows. I enjoy a lot of what Dogfish Head does for God's sake. Breweries should just be honest about what the product is and whether it is trying to be a well-done version of a traditional style or a radical new take that is something else entirely.

I went into Wussie expecting hops (duh) but also plenty of malt complexity (at least more than I got), and I was massively disappointed. Also, I would argue that just hopping the Hell out of a pilsner is hardly innovative at this point, and seen through the lens of Stone, it's what they do to every style, so even within their own portfolio it is bankrupt of creativity. It's not a bad beer, but it is inarguably a terrible pilsner, and the attitude that they portray on the can in regard to other pilsners makes it all the worse (yeah, I realize it's somewhat tongue-in-cheek in keeping with the Stone ethos, but when they non-jokingly hated on lagers for years before this one, it comes off markedly less funny).

 

Oh boy.

I can see you are very riled up here so I am reticent to enter these shark infested waters but…

Your palate is different than mine as regards Wussie. I discussed this beer last summer in a New Beer Sunday thread (see link below) and I personally picked up a notable malt backbone which I detailed as “the malt backbone with a nice bready malt flavor”. Below is an extract of my post below:

“Taste:

The taste follows the nose as regards the malt backbone with a nice bready malt flavor. The hops were barely perceptible on the nose but they are very noticeable flavor-wise. The predominant flavor I am picking up is spicy (reminiscent of white pepper for my palate). There is a very firm bitterness to this beer.”

I personally was not a fan of the spicy (white pepper) flavor that I perceived when drinking this beer.

I personally can’t agree with your statement of “it is not a pilsner”.

Cheers!

P.S. One of the benefits of BA is that we can read differing people’s reviews of the same beer and make our own personal decisions based upon varied input.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/arrogant-pilsner.407378/page-5#post-4927501

 

I respect you and your palate, so on the basis of this alone, I will probably give it another try in a mix-a-six, and I do recall the spiciness you're referring to, which I certainly attributed to hops, but the can that I drank had little to no malt to it at all. Maybe my palate was weird that day, or maybe I just expect something more out of pilsners.

I don't mean to come off abrasively, but I feel like someone has to aggressively defend styles that are, by my perception, in danger of being misrepresented by newer brewers either through "pushing boundaries," lack of brewing skill (as I know you know, making a lager ain't easy), wanton lack of respect and deference of established styles, ignorance of established styles (obviously not the case with Stone), capitalization on trends ("Pilsners are trending, so let's make one or at least we'll call it one!"), or some combination thereof.

And obviously I would never discount people's palates, but to me, the level of hop to malt was so out of whack that my personal palate just did not register it as anything resembling pilsner, and further, the fact that it is currently ranked 12th above such great beers (and great pilsners) as New Glarus Two Women, Mahr's Pilsner, OMB Captain James Jack, Chuckanut Pilsner, Smuttynose Wunderbar, Trumer Pils, Troegs Sunshine, Metropolitan Flywheel, Urban Chestnut Stammtisch, Pinkus Ur Pils, and Koenig Pils (and those are only the ones from the Top 100 in the style, which doesn't include Bitburger Pils, Stiegl Pils, and other worthy mentions), well that fact makes me shudder. Other poor pilsners also defile that list such as Half Acre Pony, Revolution Rev Pils, and 5 Rabbit Super Pils.

I'm just a really huge stylistic adherent (especially when it comes to "boring" styles), as I'm sure you're aware, and that causes me to come off more harsh than I mean to. I really don't want to come off as stuffy or anti-innovation, as I do embrace those beers that push boundaries. I just don't like to see it happen at the expense of the style itself, which I think does happen (gose and Berliner weisse, for instance, are now supposed to be puckeringly sour in the eyes of many American drinkers, and those that still hold true to a moderate tartness and a strong wheat backbone are seen as poor examples, when in reality they are actually how the beers are supposed to be).

 

Yeah, I dunno. Tasted like pilsner malt to me. I know what IPLs are, and I enjoy them too. But I don't like all hoppy pilsners.

 

And as I posted above I had the same experience.

Cheers!

 

Well, I sure hope by our interaction in this thread the aspect of "by my perception" is front and center here.

Just like every other BA you are welcome to your opinion. The challenge comes when you represent your opinion as being "fact".

I expressed my impressions of Wussie but that is just my opinion on this topic.

Cheers!

 

And in some cases they even age them intentionally. Last year I had Prairie BOMB on tap, and they said it had been aged 6 months. This really brought out the pepper heat, because the coffee was muted. They also cellar beer to make it special. Last year a local taproom had KBS in late December. They bought several kegs and served them throughout the year.

 

That's certainly true. I think it's also true that in some places beer is "aged" because it isn't selling very well. Cheers and have a good night sir.

 

This is so true. I wish there were more really interesting topics in common discussion around here. Stone makes great beer.

 

Always keep coming back to Stone... what's not to love?


Stone Brewing - RuinTen Triple IPA w/ Orange Peel and Vanilla Bean by imbibehour, on Flickr

 

I passed on Wussie when it was out last, but damn with all these pro/anti Wussie threads I want to try it now.

 

I recommend that you do and decide for yourself whether you think this beer is a Pilsner.

Cheers!

 

I've been in San Diego for over 10 years and have always thought Stone beers tasted average or below. I've never had a Stone beer that I thought tasted really good. Enjoy by is good. Arrogant bastard has never been very good. I like the gargoyle tho.
A lot more people now are starting to find out that there are so many better beers than stone.

 

I tried it and decided it's clearly a Danish strong lager.

 

Interesting comparison.

The only Danish Strong Lager I've tried was the Carlsberg Elephant Beer and it was much more malt forward than Wussie which emphasizes hops.

Can you recommend a Danish Strong Lager other than Elephant Beer which is more focused on hops and uses hops other than or in addition to Noble Hops?

Thanks.

 

Wussie reminded me a lot of FAXE, a popular Danish strong beer sold throughout Europe (usually in liter cans).

 

I agree whole heartedly. I have been pussyfooting around the "wussie" posts but I did not think it was a pilsner either. Not only is it too hoppy it has too much alcohol.