The Stone Blog

A few weeks ago we took a walk down memory lane, recounting for you the many accolades and accomplishments Stone achieved over the course of 2011.  We are not content, however, to rest on our laurels.  We’ve now turned our sights to the future and all the amazing things we have in store for you in 2012.  Dates have been set for our annual special releases as well as all of our epic beer fests.  So read on and prepare yourself for a whole year of beer-tastic-ness.  Ale-mazement?  You get the idea…

The Calm Before the Storm / Stone Winter Storm
Sunday, February 5th

Be the first to sample the rare and vintage Stone brews we’ll be pouring all week for Stone Winter Storm. Your ticket gets you an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (prepared lovingly by the culinary geniuses at the Stone World Bistro & Gardens) and a wristband entitling you to ten 4oz samples of bottled and draft beer.

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Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine Vintage Celebration and Bottle Release
Sunday, February 12th & Monday, February 13th

Bottles of this year’s release will be available for purchase on the 13^th, but you can try it a day earlier at the Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine Vintage Celebration.  We’ll have 13 vintages of this perennial favorite on draft and in bottles at the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens.  And at 11am, we’ll be popping the tops on our VERY LAST CASE of the 1999 release, so don’t be late!

Stone 2012 March Madness Homebrew Competition and AHA Rally
Sunday, March 10

Who will be the next talented homebrewer to have their beer made into a Stone Collaboration?  Come taste from among 40 different entries and help us decide the winner, all while supporting the American Homebrewers Association. RSVPs are a must! Check out all the details on the official March Madness page!

Stone Imperial Russian Stout Release
Monday, April 16th

Bottles of our beloved Stone Imperial Russian Stout will be available for purchase on this date.  Experience the ultimate heights of malt-richness and hop-bitterness—and then brag about it to your friends. Finally, something IRS-related you can be excited about in mid April!

Stone Oakquinox
Sunday, April 22nd

Savor the woody goodness of barrel-aged beers while relaxing in our gorgeous, sustainable gardens.  Your ticket gets you a commemorative tasting glass and fifteen 3oz samples.  There will be over 100 barrel-aged beers to choose from!

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Stone Late Night Movies Begin!
Wednesday, June 6th

Every Wednesday until the end of August, we’ll host free movies in our gardens.  Bring a blanket for lounging on the grass and arrive early, as space is limited.  And don’t forget to visit our concession stand for fresh draft beers and treats from the Bistro! (BBQ Duck Burrito, anyone?)  Movie list coming soon; in the meantime, check out last year’s lineup for a taste of what’s in store, and be sure to follow @StoneMovies on Twitter for periodic updates.

Stone Sour Fest
Sunday, July 8th

Pucker up!  For the sixth consecutive year Stone plays host to dozens of deliciously tart beers from world-renowned breweries.  If you’ve got a soft-spot for sours, a penchant for the piquant, a bias toward Brett, then this is the event for you!

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Stone 16th Anniversary Ale
Monday, August 13th

We can’t tell you what style it is just yet; our brewers are still toiling away to perfect this year’s brew.  But we can tell you that it will be awesome, so mark your calendars now.

Stone 16th Anniversary Brewer’s Reception
Friday, August 17th

Enjoy live music, food catered by many of San Diego’s finest culinary minds, and dozens of beers in a special commemorative glass, all while hob-knobbing and elbow-rubbing with the brewers who will be pouring their finest ales at our Anniversary Celebration the next day.  Tickets will be on sale very soon; this is an event not to be missed.

Stone 16th Anniversary Celebration & Invitational Beer Festival
Saturday, August 18th

Come celebrate 16 years of San Diego’s most aggressive beers.  Once again, Stone Brewing Co. takes over the Cal State San Marcos campus and invites over 40 breweries to join us for one of So Cal’s most epic beer fests.  And did we mention that ALL proceeds benefit local charities?  Well, they do.  In 2011 we raised a record $240,000.  Let’s see if we can top that this year!  Tickets will be on sale very soon. And, we’ll also be organizing the Stone Dye-Hards for Charity event—stay tuned for details!

Stone Pour It Black Festival
Sunday, October 7th

The newest addition to Stone’s line up of in-house beer festivals, Pour It Black celebrates the dark side of brewing.  Dozens of stouts, porters, and even some black IPAs are on hand to please your palate.  A ticket gets you a commemorative tasting glass and fifteen 3oz samples.

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Double Bastard Ale Release
Monday, October 29th

Everyone’s favorite strong ale is back for its 14th year.  Trust me, you’ll want to get your hands on a bottle or two (or twelve—hey, you’ve got to save at least a couple to cellar.  Man, does this beer age well!).  Are you worthy?

San Diego Beer Week
Friday, November  2nd - Sunday, November 11th

Stay tuned for a complete list of this year’s offerings.  As usual, we’ll kick it all off with our Stone Rare Beer Breakfast: decadent breakfast dishes of both the sweet and savory variety, served alongside dozens of hard-to-find brews.  Other events will include appearances by celebrity brewers and special tappings all around San Diego.

Stone 12.12.12 Vertical Epic Ale
Monday, December 10th

Join us at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens to celebrate the release of the final installment in our Stone Vertical Epic Ale Series.  We still have eleven months to work out the details, but I assure you it will be worth the wait.

Stone New Year’s Eve Celebration
Monday, December 31st

Come ring 2013 in with style.  Amazing food and desserts, awesome beer and wine, as well as some rare and vintage Stone ales—this is a night that you’ll undoubtedly remember well into the new year! Check out pictures and videos of last year’s event right here!

2011 is drawing to a close, and we’d like to send out a huge thank you to all our fans. With your help, we’ve accomplished some amazing things this year.

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The brewing team has been rocking it this year, making over 25 different beers in the last 12 months. Among them were seven special releases, including the mammoth & widely lauded Stone 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA.

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We began releasing our sought-after and delicious barrel-aged beers in 500ml bottles this year, and you blew us all away by raising $15,000 for charity with the very first release.

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We teamed up with more brewers than ever before to release five new collaboration beers this year. We brewed two of them with friends impacted by vengeful Mother Nature, who wreaked havoc on our brewing compatriots in Japan and Vermont. You bought enough Baird / Ishii / Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA and The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA to raise over $100,000 for disaster relief!

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We saved a farm from extinction this year; the beautiful 18 acre site now grows fruits and vegetables for the Bistro’s unique menu. It also allowed us to start our own CSA, and its fertile soil provided us over a ton of organic pumpkins, which we used to brew Bruery / Elysian / Stone La Citrueille Céleste de Citracado.

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The Stone Anniversary Celebration & Invitational Beer Festival is always an awesome day full of great craft beer, camaraderie, and fundraising. You guys came out in droves this year and raised a record $240,000 for local charities!

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You asked us for more places to get our beer as fresh as possible, so we opened the Stone Company Store in the beautiful & historic South Park neighborhood of San Diego. Local residents can grab fresh growlers of our fantastic beer, or stop by to sample our wares if they’re new to our liquid brilliance.

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There’s a lot more we could say about 2011, and we have huge plans in the works for 2012 and beyond (that’s for the next blog post), but suffice it to say none of this could have happened without you! Cheers to an amazing year!

It is hard to overstate the importance of drinking fresh beer. But it may not be immediately obvious to the uninitiated that beer is best served fresh in the first place. It is, after all, fermented, and fermented foods often get better with age. Kimchi, yogurt, miso, kefir, kombucha: these are foods whose quality depends on the serene patience of their creators, a willingness to let the invisible magic of fermentation happen at its own pace, and be ready to enjoy when it’s ready.

Further complicating matters is the fact that some beers do indeed improve with a degree of age. Properly cellared (55 degrees or less, dark, cozy), beers on the robust, high ABV end of the spectrum can evolve & improve with time.

The 9 year-round beers we brew DO NOT fall into this category. They are—dare we say—delicate creatures that only express the full-spectrum of their brilliance when FRESH. Freshly brewed beer is bright & fragrant, with clean, well-defined flavors that reflect our brewer’s intent.

Once expired, beer can become a sad, faded reflection of its former self, as age, oxygen, and light sinfully corrode the precious liquid. Drinking such beer can leave a less than favorable impression that’s hard to shake.

For that reason, we go to tremendous, expensive lengths to ensure that fresh beer is available to you. But we can’t be everywhere at once. That’s why we need YOU to join in the fight against expired beer.

If you see expired beer on the shelf, report it to the proper authorities (that’s us!) The craft beer gods will smile on your efforts, and you’ll be confident in the knowledge that the next time you buy a Stone beer, it’ll taste just as we intended.

In an effort to raise awareness about the critical role played by dedicated Stone fans in the fight against expired beer, we’ve begun releasing randomly scattered bottles of Stone IPA bearing this fetching infographic:

Handy, ain’t it? These nifty bottles have already started making their way onto shelves around the country. So if you see one, do not be alarmed. Simply check the “Enjoy By” label and, well, enjoy!

Well, 2011 is rapidly drawing to a close, but we’re squeezing in yet another collaboration beer release—our fifth of the year—before it’s over. This one wasn’t on the calendar originally, but circumstances arose that demanded we brew it.

So we did.

Some background:

One of the many unfortunate casualties of Hurricane Irene was The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury, VT, which was completely flooded and destroyed. When Stone Brewing Co. Brewmaster Mitch Steele heard of the loss, he immediately sent out an email to The Alchemist Head Brewer John Kimmich asking if there was anything he could do to help.

“John’s wife, Jen, wrote back suggesting that John fly out to Southern California for a few days… just to get a break from the reality of everything,” Mitch said. “And almost as an afterthought, she casually mentioned that maybe we could even brew something together. I ran with it.“

Mitch asked Jamie Floyd, Brewer/Co-founder of Ninkasi Brewing Company in Eugene, OR, if he wanted to complete the brewing trifecta, and he immediately jumped on board.

In November, the three brewers came together and brewed “The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA.” It was quite the occasion, so we made a nifty video about the beer and the brewday:

But wait, there’s more! You’re probably thinking, “What a great story filled with heartwarming details! And while the video described the beer fairly well, what I really want is a super-detailed sensory and technical breakdown of this luscious liquid, along with information about distribution and ingredients.”

Ask and you shall receive. Here are Mitch’s tasting and brewing notes.

The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA
http://www.stonebrew.com/collab

Stats: 7.4% abv, 80 IBUs
Availability: Limited 12oz bottles & draft, beginning December 19th
Distribution: AZ, CA, CO, FL, IL, MA, NC, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TX, VA, VT, WA

Malts: Maris Otter Pale, Light Munich, Carafa III Special Dark, and CaraHelles
Hops: Super Galena hop extract for bittering, Nelson Sauvin and Delta for flavor,  dry-hopped with a blend of Citra and Galaxy.

Appearance: Deep brown, a bit hazy, with tan foam.

Aroma: Whoa! This beer is all about, resiny, piney, dank and citrusy hops! The first shot is intense blend of pine and orange rind, and then as your sense of smell just starts to recover, the dankness and resiny herbaceousness come through with hints of grapefruit.  This is a powerful hop blend!

Taste: The hops also dominate the flavor of this beer. Orange and grapefruit rind take center stage in the flavor, followed by, you guessed it: piney / resiny notes. The beer has a modest body…not sweet at all…and has a lingering bitter, drying end. Beyond the bitter end there are light hints of roasted malt and chocolate in the finish.

Overall: The hop character in this beer is unique and very pronounced.  Galaxy is a newer hop variety from Australia that we think has strong tropical fruit and stone fruit characteristics. Citra and Delta are newer American hop varieties — Citra possesses strong citrus and dank flavors, while Delta has a milder profile with melon and berry notes. And of course Nelson Sauvin from New Zealand has its intense namesake’s white wine notes along with—surprise!—more dank notes. They all blended together well in this beer, a tribute to one of our favorite styles.

Ah, New Year’s Eve. For most people it’s a night filled with promise that typically ends in bleary disappointment. That tingle of excitement — born of a bold sense that this year will be the year of magical change — dies an early death as they sit on the couch at a friend of a friend’s, plastic red cup filled with…something, anything…TV excitedly blaring a tired staged celebration from somewhere cold.

That's an actual red carpet. So posh.

But you’re not most people. And fortunately for you, we’ve got the cure for the common party: the Stone 2011 New Year’s Eve Celebration. Let’s examine exactly how & why this will be an absolutely splendid event:

* Lively Music. San Diego’s premier funk and R&B band, The Styletones, will be playing live on the Restaurant Dance Floor. In the brewhouse, we’ll have 3 DJs spinning for a jumpin’ dance party.

* Fantastic Food. Two Sushi and Seafood Lounges featuring swanky tunes, sushi rolls, nigiri, crab claws, oysters and more; lavish Buffet Stations throughout the party; a Mac ‘n Beer Cheese bar; generous carving station; amazing desserts, including Cherries Jubilee, housemade chocolate truffles, cheesecakes, and the list goes on.

* Awesome Drinks. A fantastic selection of complimentary craft beer, wine, cider, and sodas pouring all night long. Plus three special pours of rare and vintage Stone beers (Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels anyone?) You also get a commemorative Stone Brewing New Year’s glass to keep.

* Select Cigars. Enjoy the beautiful evening with a cigar in hand on our Patio Cigar Bar (bring your own, or choose from cigars available for purchase; everywhere else is smoke-free.)

* Beautiful You! Since you’re above average, both in personality and taste (and looks too, but then we think everyone with exceptional personality and taste is beautiful), you are critical to this party. Luckily, since like attracts like, you’ll find an evening filled with exceptional people like you. The dullards stayed home. Thankfully.

Lights, bands, DJs, the whole sha-bang

Sound pretty sweet, huh? Well it is. We know this because we did it last year, and it was spectacular. But we’ve made it even better by ironing out all the kinks and adding a bunch of great new features.

Our last New Year’s Eve Celebration sold out, so if you want to enjoy this outstandingly awesome party, it behooves you to make your plans sooner rather than later. Remember, for it to be the best time possible, you’re required!

See you there.

* Wanna go over the top? Get your own private table for the evening, personal hand and foot beverage server, and a bottle of champagne for $250. For details and reservations, send an e-mail to “chuck dot samuelson at stonebrew dot com”.

Well, well well. 11.11.11. Hmmm. A very special day on several levels. First, it was the Veteran’s Day of all Veteran’s Days. A perfect day to pay tribute and honor those who have served in our country’s military. And perhaps, on a less serious side, 11.11.11 was also Nigel Tufnel Day (who is Nigel Tufnel you ask?…lead guitarist for the legendary band Spinal Tap…made famous for having his Marshall amplifiers custom built with volume knobs that go to “11”…not 10.)

“This one goes to 11….well it’s one louder, isn’t it?”

And 11.11 also was the birthday of two wonderful members of Team Stone, Marty Saylor and Laura Ulrich, so raise a glass to them!

And finally, 11.11.11 signifies the release of the second to last in our Stone Vertical Epic Ale series: the penultimate Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale.

We started off developing this beer by brewing a pilot size amber Belgian style ale using a nice variety of German and Belgian amber malts. It was a good start, a very nice beer, but was just missing that special something, that “twist” we like to have in the Stone Vertical Epic Ales. Then, one day last spring, I was in the Temecula Spice Shop in Old Town Temecula, just browsing around. I always like to look for interesting spices and teas and such, and I was looking at some chilies to possibly use for brewing…or to make a great chili for our annual Superbowl Chili Cookoff. The woman in the store told me that she had only one more bag of this wonderful Hatch Green Chili left, and she raved about the flavors from these chilies from New Mexico.

So I bought that last bag, and rather than cook with it, I decided we should try it in a pilot brew. As much as I love chilies, I’m not very well schooled in the different varieties, so I did a little research on the Hatch Chili, and was impressed by their reputation, and the idea of getting great, intense and unique chili flavor without a lot of heat. We also added a touch of cinnamon to that pilot brew, giving it a bit of a Mexican flair, and found the flavors worked amazingly well together, better than I had hoped for!

So here is the homebrew recipe. It’s a pretty basic brew in a lot of ways, so have fun with it. It’s 100% malt this year, no Belgian Syrup or Candi Sugar, so the beer ends up being a little fuller bodied than in the past few years. And as always, we suggest some musical selections that we think will pair well with each brewing step along the way.

Here is the grain bill:

Pale Malt 80.25%

Light Munich Malt 9.10%

Special B Malt 5.6%

CaraBohemian Malt 4%

Crystal 75-80°L 1.05%

As always, I am only providing the all grain version of the recipe, and just percentages, so you can figure out the weights based on the size of your brewing system and your normal efficiencies.

Target OG: 20.5°P (1.082 SG.)

OK, 11.11.11 is a Spinal Tap kind of day, so let’s start things off with the classic “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” which should get all of us in the mood for an Epic Brew Day!

Mashing:

Use a 30 minute conversion rest at 150°F. This is a moderately low conversion temperature for a relatively short time that should provide a nice balance of malt dextrins in the finished beer. If you are keeping up with these recipes, this particular mash scheme was designed to make a bit maltier, fuller beer than what we’ve done the past few years. If you can, raise your mash temperature up to 165°F after conversion rest to stop the enzymatic conversion of starches to sugars before lautering.

Lautering:

Recirculate your wort gently from the bottom over the top of the mash to deposit the fine particles of malt on the top of the grain and to “set” your bed. Avoid splashing the wort. Recirculate for 5-15 minutes, depending on your system, before diverting wort flow to your kettle/boiling vessel. You should remove almost all the malt particles from the wort flow, but some haze is ok.

Start sparging in the lauter when the wort level is about ½” above the grain bed. Starting earlier will decrease your efficiency, because the water will dilute your first wort. Sparge water should be between 165°F and 170°F to maximize extraction, but avoid going over 170°F or you’ll extract harsh compounds from the malt husks.

Fun trivia: Did you know the technique of sparging was invented by Scottish brewers in the 1700s? Up until that point, brewers would mash in, and then draw off all the liquid, and then add more water and mash again, repeating the process 3-4 times to obtain separate worts with decreasing gravities that were used for separate beers. Sparging as a standard brewing practice became common in the mid 1800s.

Sparge until you hit your target boil volume or until your wort gravity being drawn-off reaches 3°P (1.012 SG), whichever comes first. Don’t lauter past 3°P, because when the sparged wort coming off the lauter is that low in sugar content, you risk extracting tannins and other harsh character from the malt husks.

Be careful not to rush the mashing and lautering step, or your brewing efficiency will go down. These steps should be done gently, with care. A good music selection will assist in keeping things relaxed and gentle during lautering. Don’t go too mellow, just enough to keep you focused on the task at hand and inspired. Therefore, I suggest Spinal Tap’s “Hell Hole” or “Rock and Roll Creation” to keep things relaxed and focused.

Boil:

Here is the hop bill:

2.9 grams per gallon Warrior hop pellets (15% AA)

2.9 grams per gallon Perle hop pellets (10% AA)

All added at the start of boil. There are no other hop additions during the boil. This should get you about 65 IBU’s. Boil for 90 minutes.

You do know that hops are the flowers produced by female hop vines, right? Therefore, a perfect song choice when adding hop flowers to the boil is “Listen To What The Flower People Said” by Spinal Tap.

Always be safety minded, and beware of spontaneous combustion during flameout…

Whirlpool

Hop and Spice additions, to be added at the start of the whirlpool process:

2.9 grams per gallon New Zealand Pacific Jade hop pellets

1.4 grams per gallon U.K. Target hop pellets

1.4 grams per gallon New Mexico Hatch mild green chilies (dried and crushed)

1.4 grams per gallon crushed cinnamon stick

Pacific Jade is a newer hop variety from New Zealand, we first used it in the Stone 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA (How much more black could that beer be? The answer is none. None more black.) We just love the pineapple, citrusy, and spicy herbal flavors it contributes. UK Target is a high alpha English hop that provides both a characteristic English earthy hop character and hints of Orange Marmalade and Tangerine. We used this hop in our Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA.

The dried crushed chilies we got from Biad Chile in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We went with the mild version, not hot, because we really wanted the wonderful flavor without a lot of heat. The varieties are a blend of NM 6-4, AZ-20 and AZ-19, and are referred to as “Anaheim type” chilies, even though they come from New Mexico. So if you can’t find New Mexico mild green chilies, perhaps dried and crushed Anaheim chilies would be an acceptable substitute.

The chilies and cinnamon stick we put in a mesh bag and hung in the whirlpool. The addition rate is fairly low. To paraphrase our lab tech Rick Blankemeier, we didn’t want to brew a chili beer, we wanted to brew a great beer with chilies. The low addition rate allows all the other ingredients to blend in. You can taste the chilies, but this is far from a one-dimensional beer. Be sure to bust up the cinnamon stick into small pieces to maximize flavor extraction.

The whirlpool step is where you separate out your proteinaceous trub. This is called, in brewing techno-speak, the “trub break.” An appropriate song choice here could be Spinal Tap’s “Break Like The Wind.”

Fermentation:

Yeast Addition: Pitch a Belgian yeast strain, enough to get 20-25 million cells per milliliter (requires a starter). We used the Wyeast 3220 Flanders Golden strain. This strain produces a lot of banana esters, which we found blended really well with the cinnamon flavors.

After the trub has been separated from the wort, chill the wort using an immersion chiller or a heat exchanger to about 65 °F. Add enough yeast to get a cell count of about 20-25 million cells per milliliter. We used a fairly high pitching rate (yeast addition rate) here, because we wanted to ferment at a lower temperature but still ensure the beer fermented out completely. This means that you will most likely have to build up your yeast culture at home using a starter. We fermented the Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale at 68°F to maximize fruity ester formation and minimize the clove/spicy flavor formations, which form at higher levels with warmer Belgian yeast fermentation temperatures.

One thing about this yeast: it’s a powerhouse and ferments well below normal gravity limits. In this case, we formulated the beer to finish out between 4 and 4.5°P, but the yeast took it down to about 2.5°P, which resulted in 9.4% abv.

By the time you are pitching, your brew day is just about complete….so you can spin some “All The Way Home,” the very first Spinal Tap song co-written by musical geniuses Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins.

Aging:

After fermentation completes (should finish between 2.5 and 3°P), chill the beer down to about 35°F or so, and let it sit until the beer clarifies, at least one week.

Package the beer as normal.

Perhaps now is the time to start celebrating your successful brew, and celebrate by pondering the wonderful mysteries of brewing, a mysterious art which we now know was started in ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, by an ancient race of people… the Druids…. at their mystical brewing site “Stonehenge.” Nobody knows who taught the Druids how to brew, but their legacy lives on. Enjoy your brew day!

You’re undoubtedly aware of our Stone Vertical Epic Ale series. You may even have a cellar stocked with previous incarnations of our annual (plus a month and a day) homage to the wondrous effects of Belgian yeast and transformative hand of Father Time.

So the series itself requires little introduction, but this year’s installment merits some explanation. To put it succinctly, it is a Belgian-style amber ale brewed with cinnamon and Anaheim chillis from New Mexico’s legendary Hatch Valley (famous for growing complexly flavorful chillis prized by foodies.)

How that brief description translates into the taste of a beer is another matter. For those duties, I give you Stone’s Brewmaster Mitch Steele:

Appearance:

The Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale pours a deep amber with a cream colored head of foam.

Aroma:

The Belgian yeast strain we used this year has more pronounced banana aromatics than the clove flavors produced by some of the yeast strains we have used in past years. Mixed in with the banana esters are toffee malt notes, hints of spice — clove and cinnamon — and a trace of very mild green chili in the back. The aromas all blend together incredibly well.

Taste:

Upfront, the yeast-derived banana flavors are blended very nicely with toasted and toffee-like malt flavors, fruity esters, and balanced hints of cinnamon. Mid palate the Perle and Pacific Jade hops and the Hatch green chili flavors come through. The beer finishes dry, and bitter with just the most subtle of hints of chili heat and a touch of alcohol.

Overall:

Not your typical chili beer! The famous mild green chilies from the Hatch Valley in New Mexico add layers of delicious flavor with a very mild heat component. The base beer itself is very reminiscent of a European amber beer, with Perle and Pacific Jade hops, Munich and other roasted German and Belgian malts, hopped and brewed to a very Stone like 65 IBU and 9.4% ABV. Cinnamon is a wonderful spice if used judiciously, which we did here-it doesn’t by any means dominate the beer’s flavor, but definitely adds a subtly complex spice note that blends amazingly well with the banana esters and green chili.

ABV: 9.4%

IBU: 65

OG: 20.5°P

TG: 2.5°P

Malts: Pale, Crystal, Munich, CaraBohemian and Special B

Hops: Warrior, Target, Perle and Pacific Jade

Now that you’ve received the full rundown on this beer, we’ll tell you that it will begin percolating out onto shelves and taps starting on November 7th, 2011. Why not on 11.11.11, you ask? Because the beer gods prefer releases to be on Mondays. So there.

San Diego Beer Week: Nov. 4-13th

Last week we presented you with the 11 amazing SDBW events we’ll be hosting at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. This week, we venture a bit further afield, out into the broad, welcoming arms of America’s Finest City for 26(!) devastatingly awesome events (more to come — we’re shooting for an even 30.)

An exciting point about this year: virtually all of the events we have planned will feature an actual, live member of Team Stone on hand to answer your questions, raise a toast, and/or adorn your body with their signature.

A startlingly large number of these events will be attended by Stone CEO & Co-Founder Greg Koch, who has apparently obtained a hoverboard or Star Trek-style transporter; without such a device, I struggle to explain how he will be able to make so many appearances. So if you’d like to meet Greg, this is your chance because he will probably go into some kind of anti-social hibernation mode after it’s all over.

Now, on to the events. They’re helpfully listed on the right side of our SDBW website in a super handy Google calendar, allowing you to import them directly into your own Google calendar if you happen to use one. As you can see, there are a ridiculous number of events per day, but if you manage to attend all of them, Greg will reward you by covering every inch of your exposed skin (…or at least the back of your hand) in #gregface temporary tattoos. You wouldn’t want to miss that opportunity. Greg’s a bit of a shrinking violet, so it helps him come out of his shell.

As far as strategy goes, we recommend reading through all of these listings and determining which reservations/tickets you want to jump on. These events are popular and tend to fill up. Missing one means you’ll have to carry the pain of your failure-to-act until next year, so don’t let work or family or probation check-ins interfere with your browsing. It’s San Diego Beer Week we’re talking about here.

Not only is San Diego Beer Week simply too much beer week for a single blog post, it’s too much beer week for a single week, thus stretching to a slightly more comfortable but still utterly intense 10 days from November 4th-13th, 2011.

And in those 10 days, we will quite literally be taking it to 11 by hosting 11 incredible events at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. And we’re just talking about events actually at Stone; events around town are coming up in the next blog post.

Returning gems include:

• Rare Beer Breakfast, Friday, November 4th, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM. Our kick-off event for San Diego Beer Week returns for a second year with decadence galore. Amazing food, hard to find beers and live music. (Read: Lotsa tasty bacon. Lotsa tasty rare beers. Lotsa tasty live tunes.)

• Beer U: Intro to San Diego Craft Beer, Monday, November 7th, 7:00 – 9:00 PM. Stone’s beloved blabbermouth, Ken Wright, tells the story behind San Diego’s brewing success while offering samples of some of the brews that put San Diego on the map, along side some up-and-coming greats.

• Meet the Brewer: Firestone Walker, Friday, November 11th, 6:00 PM. Rub elbows with some of the award-winning crew from Firestone Walker Brewing Co. They’re visiting us to continue their 15th Anniversary celebration and will be bringing extra special beers with them, including just-released barrel-aged Firestone Walker 15.

That is, as they say, just the beginning. We’ve added a slew of new events to our roster, which will surely blow the minds of all those brave enough to attend. Here are some of these newfangled wonders:

• Bitter Sunday, November 5th, 11am – 11pm & Saison Saturday, November 12th, 11am – 11pm. These spectacular all day celebrations will feature 24+ world-class IPAs and 24+ Saisons on-tap, respectively. A brilliant way to taste your way through these classic styles.

• Master Pairings Dinner: Stephen Beaumont vs. “Dr.” Bill, Tuesday, November 8th, 6pm – 9pm. Our renowned beer expert “Dr.” Bill Sysak (@BistroBeer) goes head-to-head with acclaimed beer writer and notorious Canadian Stephen Beaumont (@BeaumontDrinks) in a showdown of beer pairing excellence. The diners will vote on the superior pairing for each course of this decadent feast. The loser will drop down to one knee and bestow the winner in this high-ego matchup of the year! (Make sure to bring your cameras kids!)

• Stone Pour It Black Festival, Sunday, November 13th, 10am – 4pm. Joining the ranks of Oakquinox and Sour Fest in our panoply of epic beer festivals, the first annual Pour It Black festival will dance freely among porters, stouts, schwartzbiers, and Black IPAs from around the world mixed lavishly with modifiers ranging from Belgian, Double, Imperial and Barrel-Aged. If you’ve been to our other festivals, you know the level “Dr.” Bill brings to the taps, so no further hyperbole is necessary.

Next up: San Diego Beer Week events around America’s Finest City.

Did you hear that we wrote a book? It’s called The Craft of Stone Brewing: Liquid Lore, Epic Recipes, and Unabashed Arrogance.

We bet you hadn’t heard that, which is why we’re sending our demonstrative CEO & Co-Founder Greg Koch on a 9-city book tour. That’s right, Greg & his face are coming to your town, assuming you live in one of the selected 9 cities east of the Mississippi.

What will Greg do on this book tour, you ask? Well, lots of things, but he’ll be talking a lot about exactly how Stone morphed from a tiny two person operation into one of fastest growing, most widely known craft breweries in the world, all while maintaining a fierce commitment to business ethics and the principles our founders hold dear.

So what exactly can the lucky folks who attend these events expect? Well, we’ve selected a veritable potpourri of venues, so it depends on which one(s) you go to.

• If you choose to attend one of Greg’s talks at a university, you’ll hear about the history of Stone, his entrepreneurial philosophy, and the secrets to the company’s success.
• If you attend one of his events at a bookstore, you’ll get to meet Greg, have the opportunity to get your photo taken with him (instant holiday card material), and get your beloved copy of our tome signed by him.
• And finally, if you attend one of his events at a bar, you can expect an absolutely stellar selection of Stone beers, the opportunity to share a beer with said CEO, hear his stump speech, catch him as he dives off the bar, get a temporary tattoo of his screaming visage affixed to your person, and have a generally joyful time.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at every event. That may also be true of the temporary tattoo thing.

So check out the handy interactive map on our book tour website and see if your city has been selected as one of the lucky hosts. Regardless of whether or not it has, we highly recommend that you stop whatever you’re doing and attend all of them. Dedicated “roadies” will receive additional temporary tattoos and inscrutable words of wisdom.