Stone Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA:
Hello all and, unlike today’s beer, I’m happy to share and NOT ruin anything about your day/palate/sense of self-worth or anything in-between.  Now we have already looked at some of Stone breweries beers this year but never their Ruination IPA (any beer that promises to ruin your palate should be approached with caution) but their anniversary line is known to be all sorts of awesome so let’s throw caution to the wind shall we?  Stone Ruination 10th Anniversary IPA is a souped-up version of the normal Ruination by upping the ABV from 7.7% to 10.8% and doubles the hops per barrel from 2.5 pounds per barrel to 5 pounds.  So are all these upgrades worth it?  Well the beer pours a very beautiful golden color with a nice thick foamy head that’s about two fingers in thickness and leaves a nice lacing on the glass’ interior and a nose of grapefruit, floral notes and a bit of pine.  The taste profile is of course heavy with hops though the mid tongue is a nice ripe yellow grapefruit flavor with floral notes and a back-end that is has the hop edge softened by malts but the hops are still there at their skunky best in the aftertaste.  So to answer our earlier question of is this worth it?  Yes, very much.  A great IPA and it’s a shame that this particular version isn’t widely available anymore (the current 16th anniversary is now out) but it does show up from time to time, especially if you’re not looking for it.