I’d heard mixed reviews (mostly solid), but to me it’s a pretty nice beer. Bought some from Costco, bottled 7/28. Given that it sat there warm for most of a month, the hop character is pretty strong - per Stone, it’s Magnum, Nugget, Centennial, Azacca, Citra, and Simcoe. Pale orange, fairly dry, strong (8.5%ish) but subtle alcohol, nice foam, crystal in check… Nice bitterness, big hop flavor and aromas of pine, citrus, peach, mango. I assume they bitter with Magnum and Nugget and use a healthy amount of the others late, given the hop flavor and aroma. My only ding is how I feel about the style in general now - the alcohol provides its own sweetness which detracts from drinkability, and unless you have a bunch of friends over it’s tough to drain a DIPA before the awesome hop character leaves town (personally, I hop like DIPA in a 1.064 beer, just me). I completely give Stone (unlike other breweries) thumbs up for the foresight not to be set in their ways - I loved Ruination 1.0 for how it challenged the ideas of IPA, but with new methods of late hopping it was time for an upgrade. This isn’t RuinTen or some of the Enjoy By IPAs, but as their new readily available DIPA and an upgrade to original Ruination, I have to say I’d buy it again. Good stuff.
Just had one tonight. Like the 2.0. Good beer for sure.
A very solid review. I would agree with this basically word for word.
I read in BYO that they only bitter in the kettle. Everything else is whirlpool and dry hop, so you are probably correct.
I need to give this a try again. I had it at Liberty Station when I was in San Diego and was not too impressed with it or the Pale Ale 2.0 but they had a black wit on tap that I kept going back to. Stone is a very hit and miss kind of brewery for me but I guess a lot of them are.
I had Ruination 2.0 at NHC (can’t remember the little sports bar’s name on property), and it had a distinct coconut note that I really didn’t like (I don’t like coconut). Had it recently and there was none of it and I enjoyed it.
Dirty lines?
I’m not typically a big fan of commercial DIPA’s, but this is a good one. Bitterness is firm, but not bracingly so. The aroma is real nice - pine, citrus and dank. I’d like more hops in the flavor, but it’s still pretty solid.
Yeah, that’s what I suspect now. At the time, I figured it was maybe an experimental hop that was throwing that note (since I recalled hearing of one or two). Now I suspect that they had some beer that had either coconut or chocolate in it on before that and didn’t clean the lines well. Certain chocolates (and even some chocolate malts) throw a coconut note for me.