Stone Brewing Co. - "Drink After 07.04.16" India Pale Ale

It's been a while since I reviewed a beer by Stone Brewing Co. (well, since March of this year at least) and I figured that a beach vacation is the perfect time to dig this out of the cellar. It's Stone's "Drink After 07.04.16", a 7.00% IPA made with Brettanomyces yeast.

Stone's made it a habit of releasing various "Drink Before..." such-and-such a date, mostly fresh-hop IPAs without preservatives, meant to be enjoyed immediately; so you can imagine my surprise when I saw this "Enjoy After" bottle on the shelf during the summer of 2015. I grabbed two with the intent on seeing how they cellared after a year and two. Well, with all the political convention hubbub last year, I forgot to try it. So here were are - the first sampling.

I took care not to seriously disturb the sediment and yeast, and although it wasn't significantly jostled, the 750mL bottle's cork opens with a tremendous POP and spewed a volcanic eruption of foamy beer on the table. Luckily it wasn't too much wasted.

It produces some of the thickest foam I've seen in a beer - I could practically float the bottlecap on that! The honey-colored beer projects a strong aroma of dank yeast, but not much else.

Wow, this is quite unlike a normal IPA. You're probably imagining something super sharp, but it's actually quite tangy - I'd compare it to a brut Champagne: yeasty,  a bit acidic, with a healthy dose of brassy bitterness. The Brett yeast comes through strongly, with lots of funky spice flavors. There's a strong, lingering aftertaste of yeast and salt and some spice flavors. I'm most interested in the dank funky flavors that the Brett yeast produces; and will also report back next year when I have the second. But my hunch is that this beer will only get more tangy and brassy, provided the yeast keeps doing its thing inside the bottle.

To be honest, I should have had one last year and one this year just to see how it was. But the bottle assures me that it can be aged for some time, at the minimum of one year, so I'm not worried that this is gone south or anything. The "Enjoy After" series is released a couple times a year, so be sure to pick this one up if you like Champagne or funky IPAs. I'm not sure if you can find this particular vintage, but research shows that Stone releases stuff like this every so often, so you'll have a chance to pick this up in the future. Prepare to spend around $16 on the bottle.