Stone Brewing RuinTen Triple IPA: Stone is known for pushing the envelope to the limit when it comes to brewing, so it’s no surprise to see that this beast dubbed an “audacious gem of hoppy splendor” is brewed to a strength of 10.8% abv with 110 IBU’s worth of hops. Bottled on June 13th, 2015, this beer was creeping towards the end of its drinking window and I was glad to finally find a bottle in Washington that I could try. It started out as a 10th anniversary beer challenge for the brewers and has since been brewed annually as seasonal release.

Flavour: Honestly, this beer is so intense it is hard to describe with words. Initially Ruin Ten is loaded with warm bread dough and malt balls, coming across as slightly sweet for just a moment until resinous pine chips and lemon peel take over in the middle of the beer, leading into a peach skin like texture followed by lemon peel. It finishes quite bitter, with notes of tongue tingling nettle, herbs and dry earthy tree stumps as it goes down.

Overall Impression: Somehow, Stone manage to make a beer that quite literally tastes and smells like a forest floor and some how made it taste pretty damn good.

Rating: Excellent 8/10, I will buy another next year. It’s worth noting, this beer utterly decimates your palate, my tongue was tingling for hours after consumption. Don’t plan on drinking anything after a bottle of this beer except some water, let’s face it, at 10.8% that’s probably a good thing anyway!

Food Pairing: Tough call on this one, but a high quality cut of beef like a porterhouse would stand up nicely to this beer and the herbal nature of it would work well with the meat.

Check out the story behind RuinTen from the brewery below, it’s a quick overview of the story behind the beer.