Stone 8th Anniversary Ale

This year's 8th anniversary is, like all previous Stone Anniversary Ales, an adaptation of a previous Stone Brewing Co. release. This year we set out to make an "Anniversary-ized" version of Lee's Mild, a limited-release beer from 1999. For this beer we used some of the same malts that we had used in Lee's Mild, added more hops, less water (to bring the alcohol content up), and found a tasty balance of toasty/roastiness from the malt and a subtle (by Stone standards!) hop presence. To add further complexity, oak was employed to round out the character and give the beer a bit of vanilla/bourbon influence from the wood.