Stone Guys at Ashleys AA

Join the head brewers of Stone, Mitch & Steve, for the release of
Levitation Ale in Michigan at 5pm on Saturday April 25 in Ann Arbor.
Mitch & Steve are stopping by on their way back from the Craft Brewers
Conference in Boston. Before they head home they are going to team up again with Ron Jeffries of Jolly Pumpkin in Dexter to brew something special.

UPDATE

Also scheduled to appear:

* Chipotle Smoked Porter
* 12th Anniversary Oatmeal Stout
* Arrogant Bastard
* Pale Ale
* Ruination
* Russian Imperial
* IPA
* Smoked Porter
* 08-08-08 Maybe???

UPDATE

Well, that was fun. It turned out to be a smallish gathering of brewers and assorted beer nerds. It was great to meet Steve Wagner, the founding brewer from Stone, and the man responsible for Pale Ale, Smoked Porter, and Arrogant Bastard, among others; and great to see Mitch Steele again. Ron Jeffries and the guys from Nogny O were also there, fresh from the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, and Laurie Jeffries and Molly Brown from Jolly Pumpkin were there, as well. We've been lucky enough to have a couple of preview samples of Levitation in the past month or so, and were happy to have more, but I think we were both most excited by the prospect of the Chipotle Smoked Porter. We were certainly not disappointed; it was smooth and balanced, with a nice pepper glow. I'd love to have some with some barbecue... Steve Wagner explained that they periodically rack a few barrels of their regular (and excellent) Smoked Porter into a tank with some chipotles and age it a while. It's a rare treat, so if you want to try it, hie thee to Ashley's soon. We also had some of the Twelfth Anniversary oatmeal chocolate imperial stout that had been aged in bourbon casks. It was nice, not too boozy, but I still might prefer the non-wood version. I had a small taste of the Vertical 8-8-8, basically a tripel/strong golden, which still has plenty of hop character. Oh, yeah, the Levitation: ruby-brown, big resiny hop aroma and flavor, backed up with nutty malt with a hint of chocolate. Body is medium-light, and alcohol content is a temperate 4.4%/vol. A perfect beer if you want to have Extreme!Dude! flavor without getting too wasted....