Another cool...

ale is awesome. Arrogant Bastard, Double Bastard and old Guardian are just OK)

Thank god! Finally, someone who agrees with me that Stone is often over-rated, or at least not deserving of the orgasmic fawning that so many people bestow upon it. An assload of hops is not the only thing that makes a good beer.

-Steve

Steve, I... What I mean is... Are you sure you...

Never mind. I don't really want to ask exactly what "an assload" of hops is.

I have to agree that I like their IPA better than I like the Arrogant Bastard (though I really like the Arrogant Bastard bottle :-) ).

Lurker Matt

Well, that all depedns on the individual, dunnit?

As for Stone beers, I do like the Old Guardian, as it not only has the generous assload of hops, there's a pissload of nice malt (FMB) there to back them up.

I think what he means is the is more to the quality of a beer than what the IBU rating is. Something I find refreshing since I'm not a fan of IPA's and tend to favor Stouts, Nut Browns and Bocks

Bruce in Cleveland. not all beer fans are hopheads

I think I agree, but I'd phrase it a little differently. I think that hedonic reviewers need to keep the *same* expectations for *all* beers, but those expectations should be based on generic attributes like quality of ingredients, creativity in formulation, and skill in execution, rather than style-specific attributes like hoppiness, or body, or color, etc. It's much more difficult to pull off, and most hedonic reviewers don't pull it off consistently. Which is why I ignore most hedonic reviewers. I'm only going to pay attention to the people who appreciate everything beer is capable of being, from the bold and obvious to the understated and subtle.

Probably too much to expect these days, when intensity is the only surviving metric for anything.

###

Agree 110%.

Yup. I just picked up some Stiegl Pils (as well as some Three Floyds Dreadnaught IPA) because I really like that beer. It's assigned a whopping 2.5 stars. Typical comments range from "if you have had St. pauli girl then you have had this but I cannot recall which one is better right now" to "unimpressive flavor. Good cold and with food but that's it" (the last from some backwater called Urbana, Illin-Oy!).

I would agree some are overrated, but they do have a cult following and the Stone guys are a really nice and sincere brewers. David

Well, of course, it depends on how big one's ass is.

And, given the way so much of beer geekery is, criticising people for thinking that "assload of hops" equals "good beer," we're certainly not talking about Kate Moss' ass here.

-Steve

Si. Old Guardian is a good beer for precisely the reasons you mentioned. Hoppy as hell, but also malty as hell. It is, oddly enough, balanced. Something Stone rarely achieves.

-Steve

You know, I'm trying to be better about not being so judgemental and being dismissive of people who judge things by standards far different from my own, but anyone who thinks Stiegl pils and St Pauli Girl have anything in common other than being beer and pale is an absolute moron or has lead for a tongue.

-Steve

Hey, screw it, let's be judgmental. But should we say these people have lead tongues, or dead tongues? Because the more I look at some people's tasting notes, the more I wonder why there aren't MORE cases of food poisoning...these guys can't taste S*IT. Literally.

No, that's not accurate. Some of these guys are tasting things that there is just NO WAY they're in there. As my grandfather used to say, they need their tongues scraped. Of course, every opinion is a good opinion, I realize that, I'm not stupid or nothing.