Stones Epic failure??

I've only ever had the 10 and the 11...didn't bother to try the 12.

 

I drain poured the 10 last night and my initial thought was "age did not do this any favors". I had the 11 last year twice and I could not get into it even though I enjoy chile beers. However, I had 12 last week and I thought it was superb. Based on that, I ended up not going to any of the vertical tastings in the area. And there were a ton.

 

Sometimes it's hard for things to live up to the hype that surrounds them. No matter how popular, no beer is going to live up to tasting like the nectar of the gods (although to a certain extent, they all do!). Aside from the initial complaint, you said you enjoyed them all, so what's the issue again?

 

I had 8-12 on tap last night.

8 was really just a hoppy triple. It aged phenomenally, and still had some aromatic hop character, and no oxidized aroma. It's pretty amazing to be that fresh after 4 years with no dark malt.

I think your palate is an epic failure.

Kidding, seriously, totally kidding.

 

as has been said on ba many times before, stone vertical epic was neither a vertical, nor epic.

 

Last week I drank '09 and '10; liked '09 a lot, '10 wasn't anything special.

 

I have never been a fan of dark belgians, so I've avoided most of the Epic flights around town. I do have 9,11 & 12 sitting in my cellar at home, and will probably invite some friends over to finish those off. The 12 I've had on tap has been un-remarkable.

 

If nothing else, I think it was a great lesson to people that aging is a bad thing for the vast majority of beers, and even the ones you think might work well often fail. So from that standpoint, it's educational, and thus you can't consider it a failure. I'm not sure they ever set out to do much more than make an interesting experiment.

As a concept, it started out as something novel and a bit before the beer world was ready for it. But by the time it ended, the rest of the beer world had caught up to it and the excitement was gone.

 

I think you are a bit off in saying that is a failure.
We did 03-12 and even had 2 variants of 11 on hand.

The earlier batches were all stored properly in a temp controled wine fridge with wax dipped tops. No oxidation. A bit old but held up nicely.

I am sure bottle variations could lead you to possibly jump the gun a lilttle.

Cheers!

 

I tried 07-12 all fresh, I had no delusions as to something magically happening to the beers over the years that was gonna turn them from decent Belgian style beers into a magical tasting for the ages where one beer perfectly plays off the nuances of the next.

 

Greg Koch... a mere mortal.

 

You detected no oxidation in the bottles?

 

I was able to try them all last weekend from a friend's cellar. They had been stored in a 55 degree wine storage facility for the duration of their lives. I was surprised at how bad they were. 2-5 were horrendous. Tons of paper, cardboard, and metallic notes. 6 and 7 were okay. 9 was pretty discusting. I don't rememeber being offended by 10. 11 was horrible. 12 was an abomination. If people did the vertical at Stone the beers might not have been as bad. I think Stone stores their cellared beer near 33 degrees.

 

I only had the 09 (a few weeks ago) and found it absolutely delicious.

 

It's really just a fun thing to do. Nobody could really predict the outcome. Take it for what it is.