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Stone 19th Anniversary Thunderstruck IPA close-up
Image
Stone 19th Anniversary Thunderstruck IPA close-up

Stone 19th Anniversary Thunderstruck IPA

A Double IPA with 100% Australian Hops

STYLE
Double India Pale Ale
ABV
8.7%
IBUs
95

Our 19th anniversary release brings the boom, delivering it to the palate in a voluminous, hop-driven thunderclap. This double IPA owes its considerable oomph to a quartet of Australian hops—Topaz and Galaxy, plus two newcomers, Ella and Vic Secret, that scored impressively in test batches. We’re also applying the all-Aussie theme to the malt bill, which is composed entirely of an Australian variety called Fairview. The beer’s striking tropical fruit, citrus and peach hop flavors and slightly resinous and aromatically dank earthiness are sure to electrify your senses.

We have many special beers planned for release to celebrate our 20 years of brewing, so let this serve as the first course to what will be an undoubtedly epic feast for craft beer enthusiasts, with particular thanks to those who've been with us for the long haul and helped us attain such longevity. Consider this the first of many Thank-Yous...for years to come!

ABOUT THIS BEER

Release Date
August 10, 2015

NATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

AVAILABLE
NOT AVAILABLE
AVAILABLE
NOT AVAILABLE

INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

Australia; Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; Japan; Singapore; and United Kingdom

Tasting Notes

Appearance
Pours gold color with a white head of foam.
Aroma
Aroma is amazing; massively hoppy with exotic tropical fruit, peaches, citrus and pineapple characters, balanced with a bit of peppery-herbal dankness.
Taste
Lots of fruity hop notes, ripe fruit, pleasantly malty and lasting intense bitterness
Palate
Medium-bodied, bitter and dry.
Overall
Over the last several years, we have developed an intense and thorough hop-evaluation program that involves brewing a standard IPA test recipe on our five-barrel pilot system or our ten-barrel brewery at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Liberty Station. With this program, we identify experimental, new or old-favorite hop varieties to evaluate, and these test beers are late-hopped and dry-hopped exclusively using the variety we are exploring. We’ve discovered a lot of great hops via these test brews, and the hops used in this release are great examples of the success of our program. We have developed a real affinity for hops grown in Australia. Australian Galaxy, for example, is a mainstay dry-hop in our Stone Enjoy By IPA. In the case of Stone 19th Anniversary Thunderstruck IPA, we dry-hopped the beer with two Australian hop varietals that went through our evaluation program: Vic Secret and Ella. Both are flavorful varieties with complex fruit profiles. To make this beer even more authentically Australian, we also imported close to 400,000 pounds of Australian Fairview malt, all in 1,800-pound “supersacks” for use as the base malt. The result is a uniquely Australian beer, Stone-style. Thun-da!
Provided by
Mitch Steele
,
Brewmaster

Pairing Notes

Appetizers
Barbecue shrimp, chicken satay, kimchi, guacamole, goat cheese-stuffed piquillo peppers
Salads
Caesar, summer corn, quinoa and vegetable, antipasto
Entrées
Fish tacos, pad thai, spicy vegetarian chili, chana masala
Cheeses
Parmigiano-Reggiano, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, manchego, fontina, Keen’s Cheddar
Desserts
Carrot cake, peach cobbler, white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies, ginger spice cake
Cigars
Herrera Esteli Piramide Fino, Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story
Provided by
"Dr." Bill Sysak
,
Craft Beer Ambassador