The Stone inversion

The beer that held the record (until today) of languishing longest in my drafts folder without a proper write-up is Stone Imperial Saison. That picture there was date stamped 12th March last, taken in The Tap House in the aftermath of their White Hag event. I feel terribly guilty about not getting to it sooner because it definitely deserves a recommendation. Normally I'd run a mile from saison at 9.4% ABV but it was the end of the night and my guard was down: you know how that works. This does have a thick and heavy texture, but that's as far as the imperialisation goes. The flavour is clean and still quite crisp, with an assertive but not overblown level of white pepper and a wisp of mint humbug on the end. Best of all there's no hot and sickly fruit which is always the danger when saison gets notions. Although it's a sipper -- in defiance of proper saison rules -- it's still a very nicely put-together beer.

And from a strong version of a normally weak style to a weak version of a strong beer. Little Bastard is a brand extension from Stone's long-established strong ale Arrogant Bastard. This is 4.7% ABV and a coppery brown colour. It's a very old-fashioned flavour, reminding me of typical salt-of-the-earth English brown bitters. There's bags of tannin, to the point of astringency, but not much by way of malty substance. Bookending the flavour is a vegetal bitterness at the front and a sugary caramel aftertaste. If you'd told me this was a bottled bitter from a Victorian family brewery in the home counties, I'd have believed you. If you'd told me it was McMullen's AK I'd probably have nodded along. Arrogant Bastard famously boasted of its depth and complexity, but this variant seems to have stripped both those things out leaving a decidedly anodyne red ale.

A one-all draw for Stone Berlin, after considerable extra time and one golden goal.