Libations

Stone Enjoy By 9/21/12 Takes Over Chicago

August 27 2012 - 9:42 PM

IPA’s are like stories.  I love them but everybody’s got one, and not enough folks are all that good at crafting them.  A good story that’s brewing in Chicago is the arrival of Stone Brewing’s Enjoy By 9/21/12 IPA, an IPA so fresh, so meticulously crafted, that if you don’t drink it by that particular date, it’ll turn to genuine undrinkable swill at the break of dawn on 9/22.   Well, not exactly.  But you’ll miss its peak quality if you wait too long.  Of course, that’s the case with any IPA, since those beers are so heavily dependent on their excessive hops’ fleeting aromas and flavors.  So, this latest blend of hops from Stone’s cauldron may just be a huge marketing ploy.  If so, it’s quite a campaign, as they even allow you to vote on having 9/21/12 come to your town next.  You can find a full write-up on the beer and a bit about the marketing campaign here at the beer blog.

By the way, I should add that the beer is worth any amount of hype surrounding it.  It might perhaps be Stone’s best ever offering.  That’s for you to decide.   All I know is that a buddy of mine who’s a rep for a big-time Colorado brewery and I taxied 2 miles to get one of these on draft.   We both agreed that it might, perhaps, be the best beer of anyone’s we’ve had all year.  But it comes at a 9.4% price, so drink sparingly.  Another friend of mine joked that the beer should be called Enjoy By 12/21/12, invoking the Mayan apocalypse.  Good one.  But I responded that it takes the final 3 months to overcome this monster beer’s effects.

– M. Sheppard

Comments