Even got a picture with the infamous Greg face! Got some sweet autographs, sampled the awesome 15th Anniversary beer... guy loves his beer and the enthusiasm shows. Little over the top at times, but hey..when you're passionate, you're passionate. Headed over to the Hobo to see what sorta surprises they'd have for his arrival... lo and behold at least 2 ON TAP that you can't even find in bottles anymore! DAMN!
They had the usual suspects - Arrogant Bastard, IPA, Pale Ale, Cali-Belgique, new 15th Anniversary, Oaked Bastard, the 10.10.10 Vertical Epic from last year.. also happened to see 13th Anniversary and Lukcy Basartd! Lukcy hasn't been around for well over a year and the 13th..well, yeah, was the 13th, meaning from 2009. Both on tap!? Can ya guess what I got? (stock photos)
Lukcy Basartd.. brewed for the 13th anniversary of the release of Arrogant Bastard, cause 13 is lucky, right?! Keeping with the tradition of his crazy rants written on the bottle, this one is written cryptically, with the first and last letter of each word in the right place, with all the others jumbled. Still readable..but tough, so only the "worthy" make the effort. Really tough to describe this one.. 8.5% ABV - actually a blend of the Arrogant Bastard, OAKED Arrogant Bastard and Double Bastard. So the crazy smooth malts are there, huge hop profile with some smoky notes present. A wickedly smooth beer, way too easy to drink for an 8.5% ABV, yet a huge bite...decent amount of spice, thick caramel/molasses, but smoother vanillas, piney hops. Very complex, tough to pick out individual tastes, but damn tasty! Could try it for yourself by mixing all 3 in a glass..but this was a little bit more than that. 
Stone 13th Anniversary - 9.5% ABV and 90+ IBUs... don't let the sub-100 IBUs fool you. They said they used 2.5lbs of hops per barrel for their hoppiest beer, the 10th Anniversary...almost 4.5 lbs/barrel were used on this! HOLY HOPS! Classified as an Imperial Red.. wait.. a what? Yeah, great deep copper pour, huge caramel/hop nose..typical of the big Stone brews. This was actually double dry-hopped.. so awesome hoppy tastes persist throughout the beer, but with a huge malt profile holding it up, nutty, hints of chocolate, rich toffee..barleywine-ish. Picture Arrogant Bastard with more pronounced malts, a bit smoother, with a bigger hop finish... Super stoked to have been able to try this!Again, these are kinda rough tastes cause both brews are at least a year old..obviously kegged when they were first released, and didn't stop to analyze too much. Probably were a bit better closer to the release dates and the tastes have become a bit muddled, but no matter how similar the Stone's taste, they all have their unique qualities and these still stuck out amongst the others. Oh, and of course he got up with a bullhorn and did his little "stand up for craft beer" speech about not settling for shitty, watery yellow piss beers and bringing other out of the shadows and into the light of craft beer, followed by the moving 6 person crowd surf (a little over the top for being inside a bar, but I guess it's his shtick. Still pretty awesome to have met the man behind the Stone beers, get some things signed and try some rare brews!
(stolen from Becky)
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