At the rate I’ve decided to do beer reviews, Evan is going to have to change the name of this blog to “the self hating hopster.” (See what I did there?) I’ve been reviewing so much beer I feel there could be a Joanie Loves Chachi-like spin off to this Happy Days of a blog somewhere down the line. For now, I remain your faithful servant in amateur beer reviews.
To that point, I’ve noticed that there really aren’t any sites that call out terrible beer? People on Beer Advocate sometimes let loose, but overall it’s people saying “Yeah, it’s ok, whatever, etc.” I read a great deal of Hoptopia the other day. The site is Lee Williams’ life work as a beer connoisseur. I honestly couldn’t find a beer rated lower than 88/100. What is that shit? Ok, so you review imperials and special stuff. You like all of it? It’s like how Rolling Stone doesn’t have the balls to give any new artist a bad review so help they end up looking foolish.
Brewing varies, but a recipe is a recipe, and I’ve never heard of a highly distributed brewery just winging it. I cannot be the only one getting bad batches all the time. I say this because I drank one of the worst beers of my life the other day. Stone Brewing out of San Diego, CA has a reputation as being a “smug” brewery. Their beers are named for the mostly insufferable of our society (Arrogant Bastard Ale, Sublimely Self Righteous Ale, etc.) The beers themselves have short essays painted on the side of the bottle, slathered with PSAT words and suggestions that you might not understand how this beer is supposed to taste. For the most part, they brew some pretty good stuff (Ruination IPA and 10.10.10 Vertical Epic come to mind.)
Stone’s Levitation Ale, happens to be a more modest brew. In fact, what drew me to the beer itself was the relatively low alcohol content (4.4%, a spritzer compared to most of their offerings.) The other thing that swayed me was the Great American Beer Fest 2007 award painted on the top. GABF is widely considered the premier beer fest in the country. It was sold in a six pack, I’ve read it comes in bombers as well. The beer is a dark amber color, darker than I would have expected. Smelled like a mixture of caramel and hops. It started well enough. Then, I drank it. There were clumps of yeast floating around in the bottle, which while mostly harmless, always serves to skeeve me out drinking bottled beer. It tasted like Ovaltine blended with a chunk of your front lawn, with a New Castle poured over top of it. I decided that it was something the drain in my kitchen sink would enjoy drinking, and I was right. My advice is if you’re interested in trying any of Stone’s offerings, try one of their IPAs.
the self-hating hipster 
I’m fully with you. In fact I avoid all off Stone’s beers.. most of them are overly aggressive and some I find down right undrinkable.. I can’t remember any beer I’ve had by Stone that I actually liked.. yet still I’ve gotten the past three vertical epics each year.. (The last one is next year I think as they release them 1.1.2001, 2.2.2002, etc. I think it stops at 12,12,2012..) Thank you for voicing out! Stone likes to make things aggressively hoppy and they play it off like it’s complex when its just a one note (dissonant at that) beer. bleeegghhh
Agreed. Stone Brewery beers were something that I discovered in the summer of 2004 when my prior definition of a craft beer/microbrew was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Some of their IPAs are enjoyable, but they are ridiculously overpriced for what they are (sort of like Rogue). Try the Snide, Pretentious Piece-of-Shit Pilsener! Not.
The weird thing is I absolutely loved the 10.10.10 vertical epic. Belgian strong ale brewed with chamomile.