Arrogant Bastard Ale:
Hello all you unworthy ones.  No, this isn’t my opinion, it’s the bottles.  Really, I swear! Stone Brewery is known for their aggressive brews and probably their best known is this one: Arrogant Bastard Ale.  This beer is one that everyone has passed on the big bottle isle, grabbed it, chuckled, and then moved on to that safer domestic sixer that’s forming a pyramid at the end of the isle. Well friends, if beer were politics, this one would be the war hawk imperialist minded S.O.B.; a bad boy ale with the taste, nose, and screams for attention just so you can experience it’s arrogance.  The beer pours an amber brown with a slight cream colored head that leaves nice lacing on the interior of the glass and a nose of hops that are on the double IPA level.  Given the fact that the hops in this beer are called Alpha hops, the initial taste is of a strong/ripe hop that seems to increase as it travels to your gullet.  While the main level of hops is there and is the center of attention, there are undertones of flavors like maple syrup, caramel, and coffee all flow in and out of each other with ease.  Make no mistake, this is a strong tasting beer, albeit not too strong booze wise- a mere 7.2% ABV which, for a hoppy beer, is about the average- and it will not only divide a room of beer drinkers, it’ll split tables of said beer drinkers.  I personally don’t really dislike nor like this beer, it’s just there and it doesn’t have that nice citrus taste a good hoppy beer develops so I don‘t see it being a regular member of the rotation.  I think every person should try at least one Stone Brewery beer in their beer adventures, and if this is one of them then God love you and I hope you make it to the other side.