Stone says:
“The mree fcat taht yuo’re hdoinlg tihs bttloe in yuor hnad ianidctes taht yuo’re pyiang antteiton, wihch ideitammley stes you arpat form the msseas. It aslo mkaes you one Lukcy Basartd. Hewover, lcuk faovrs the blod… and the arorgnat.”
Not pictured: Cheering, joy.
Stone Brewing’s Lukcy Basartd
American Strong Ale, 8.5% ABV
This is probably going to be the only review ever of this kind of beer with just shy of 6 months of age on it, and there’s a very good reason for this. If you’ll allow us a little personal backstory, I left a job in early February. At that point, Ryan very graciously bought me two beers – a Mickey’s 40oz. in case I had a bad day in my job search, and a Stone Lukcy Basartd for when I finally got some good news from the job front.
And without divulging too much, this week we had some good news. The first thing I did after getting that news was call the wife, the second was call the family, the third was to start chilling this beer. A lucky bastard, indeed.
Conventional wisdom states that it’s usually not a good idea to hang onto a hoppy beer like this for any longer than a few weeks to a month, but I stuck it at the back of the pantry in a fairly temperature controlled area, not exposed to light. It’s the best cellaring I could do, and I wasn’t going to break this out before its proper time, so as such feel free to take this with as large of a grain of salt as you like. That said, I dug this beer, malty and bitter even after months in the bottle.
This brew is a blend of Arrogant Bastard (our review here), the Oaked Bastard and Double Bastard. Appropriately enough, it had a lot going on – this was a triple punch of up-front malts, bitter aggressive hops and hot oaky smokiness. Pouring a rusty brown with a huge pillow of cloudy tan head, this beer has a huge malt flavor very reminiscent of a Lagunitas Hopstoopid, somehow mellower on the hops but still bitter, and even maltier (perhaps, Double maltier?) and thick. The time in the bottle no doubt affected the topnotes on the hops, but make no mistake, this is still a bitter beer. Far bigger than a usual Arrogant, this beer feels fully the presence of the Oaked and Double.
I daresay that even though American Strong is not always a cellar-friendly style of beer, this one could stand up to a year of time and would still stand up as a powerhouse of flavor. The 8.5% ABV found its way straight to my head , and this is not a hurry-up beer. Between phonecalls and emails, this beer took well over an hour to find my way through, which was about the right pace. Don’t rush yourself on this one – take your time, and enjoy it.
Oh, by the way – one of my first beer purchases after getting the news? An original Stone Arrogant Bastard. And with that, the circle was complete.