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Stone Enjoy By 02.14.15

Stone – Enjoy By 02.14.2015 (The Ultimate ‘Drink Fresh’ Beer)

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‘Enjoy By’ is a concept by Californian brewery Stone intended to get the beer consumed whilst still as fresh as possible.

Stone 'Enjoy By' 02.14.15
Stone ‘Enjoy By’ 02.14.15

There are several releases of their double IPA every year, each comes with a prominent ‘Enjoy By’ date of no more than 6 weeks after bottling. I’d been after one for a while and kept missing them for various reasons but early this year I finally got my hands on a bottle of ‘Enjoy By 02.14.2015’. Ignoring the silly American dates I was just a little excited.

It was already the end of January and I found it’d been bottled on the 9th of the month with a deadline drink day of Valentines day. There was no way I was leaving it until the end though.

Superbowl XLIX on February 1st seemed the perfect opportunity to enjoy it.

After building up to the main event of the evening slowly – in true Superbowl style – with some U.S inspired beers (BrewDog) and classic American craft brews (Flying Dog, Brooklyn and Sierra Nevada) the ‘Enjoy By’ was cracked open in preparation for Katy Perry’s half time ‘entertainment’.

Superbowl Beers
Superbowl Beers

And what a beer it is.

I’m a huge fan of IPA’s and double IPA’s in general, particularly U.S style and this is a perfect example of them.

It pours golden with a frothy white head and there’s a lovely citrus and floral aroma.

The freshness is immediately obvious. It’s hops, hops and more hops right at the front – think big citrus, tropical and pine flavours – and although there’s a nice sweet malt background it finishes with a refreshing bitterness.

Stone 'Enjoy By' 02.14.15
Stone ‘Enjoy By’ 02.14.15

Overall it’s a brilliant IPA, full of flavour, totally smooth and so well balanced. Despite packing a punch it feels really quite light and certainly doesn’t taste its 9.4% ABV.

I’ll be looking to get my hands on future releases for sure.

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Agree? Disagree? Let me know!