IMOL Double Dips in Episode Three...

International Men of Leisure inexplicably were not able to make a January date work for our monthly conference call.  Apologies.  All of them.   But in the end, that means you get two reviews of beers that range from somewhat interesting to extremely interesting.  First up, we drinking the same IPA, brewed by the same company, in two different breweries, neither of which is their flagship brewery in California.  That's a lot of commas, but you'll get the idea, I promise.  Also, we visit a Swedish beer that was developed around the dream of a 12 year old to become a pastry chef.  You're interested now, aren't you?

Before we get into the beer, a reminder that this exercise is for me, and my good handsome friend in Paris, to find identical beers and then discuss them.  Where are they from?  How did they get there?  Did travel have an effect on them?  Are they marketed differently?  Are we tasting the same things?  Stuff like that.  Let's get to the beers...



First up, we discover that Stone beers brewed at the recently opened Berlin location have made their way to France.  I knew this was one that I could get, so I was pretty excited to compare and contrast.

Stone IPA v 1.1 brewed in Richmond, VA, and the equivalent Stone IPA from Berlin, Germany.  The v 1.1 is a fairly new addition to the bottle.  I assume since the short lived Stone IPA 2.0 doesn't exist outside of the US, there wasn't a reason to clarify on the can brewed in Berlin.  You will note that the US version is bottled, the Berlin edition is canned.  I could only find 12 packs of cans in PA, so I opted for the sixer of bottles, purchased at Kunda Bev in King of Prussia.  As an aside, Kunda Bev, and other PA distributors, can not only sell six packs now, but they also have a Crowler Machine.  Check their twitter feed for updates.  Although the branding is very similar, you will notice a few differences in the marketing and story, especially in the pictures towards the end of this summary.

Stone wins the game with their bottle dating.  (side note: I know I put a bunch of nonsensical crap links in this blog, but I highly recommend clicking that one.  I wish every brewery had a site like that.)  They now stamp each can or bottle with two lines, coding the location where the beer was brewed, the date it was bottled, and it's enjoy by date.  I think Boulevard Brewing also does this, and I can tell you that it's personally greatly appreciated.  I've spent many an hour in Weiss Markets or Whole Foods, looking for bottle dates, only to get home before I'm finally able to decipher whatever code the brewery is using, or heat the bottle over the stove to reveal the hidden ink, all to eventually find out that my IPA is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-18 months old.  It's the worst, and it's becoming a real issue with more and more brands on the shelf.  So Stone has now jumped higher on my list of go-to six packs to pick up, knowing that I'll easily be able to find out how fresh the beer is.

Interesting to note how much longer the freshness coding is for Berlin.  It's obvious that Europeans don't mind hop fade very much.  Seriously, as was noted by my Parisian friend, the concept of hoppy beers must be fresh is not super prevalent, because there just hasn't been the same kind of hoppy beers there until late.  It will be interesting to see what happens as local breweries continue to grow, and more US style exports (Lagunitas) make their way over there.  If the code for a Stone IPA in the US is 90 days, it's silly that the German version could be 9 months.  Also note, I believe the codes for cans in the US to be the same as the bottles.

We poured.  We drank.  And we were actually pretty excited.  I haven't purchased a Stone IPA in some time.  It was fairly comical that we both commented that it reminded us of an Enjoy By.  There is definitely a much more heavy, stripping, bitter finish (the Enjoy By finishes much sweeter with fruitier notes,) but for a beer that you can pull of the shelf literally (which is why we did this) anywhere, it was fantastic.  I was not disappointed to have 5 more of these sitting in the fridge.  In case you are having trouble reading the dating codes, the RVA was bottled 12/20/2016 and enjoy by is 3/20/2017.  The Berlin is 12/2/2016 and enjoy by 8/29/2017.  Pretty plain-Jane to describe this one as a typical West Coast Style IPA, pine in the nose, grapefruit, some peach way underneath.  A mini-Enjoy By with a brutally bitter finish.  ABV is 6.9%.  I would say they've done an amazing job of making the same beer in three different places.  Next time, I may opt for the twelve pack of cans.

Next up, we find some funny bottles with smiley faces on them.  What's that about?  I received a picture of a recent beer run from across the pond.  I recognized three of the beers.  Out of 27.  It was the Stone IPA above, and also their Xocoveza.  I thought those would be easy to get, but Xocoveza is pretty much gone from the area.  I know it was in the mixed seasonal 12 packs, but I don't know if it was in six packs individually in the area.  It's pretty good if you see it.  Also a Belgian Christmas beer, which I could not find over several bottle shop stops.  That made me angry as I know I've seen it around.  Finally.  Exhausted and in despair, I tried one last place.  I showed the picture in a last ditch effort, and wouldn't you know it, they had one of the beers.  Omnipollo Noa Pecan Mud.  "Huh?  What's that?," I said.  Turns out it's an 11% Imperial Stout with either natural or artificial flavors and coloring.  Or both.

The bottles were pretty much identical.  Beers poured, black.  Just black.  We both had the tiniest bit of head that quickly disappeared.  You could smell this one from across the room.  Here are some ramblings of note we had.  Reminded me of Neshaminy Creek Leon (S'mores Imp Stout), sugar hides all the booze and there is plenty of that to hide, marshmallows as it warms, marzipan with honey notes, has some mahogany highlights at the edges of the glass, smells like scratch-n-sniff brownie, brownie batter, no carbonation, sticky and sweeter as it warms, definitely get pecans.  It's pretty amazing.  Price point is a little high ($12 for a 11.2 oz bottle), but I think it was definitely worth it.  Omnipollo is a gypsy/nomad/contract brewer.  Their website shows all of their beers and if you click on the bottle will give you a little more description as well as where it was brewed.  These were both brewed in Sweden at Dugges.  These are the pictures of the back of the bottles.

If you zoom in, you can see that the US one mentioned Artificial, while the French mentions Natural.  The US had a Best By 09-01-2020 and the French had 02-25-2021, so one would think they weren't brewed that far apart.  The majority of the balance is pretty similar.  They're nice screen printed bottles (like Stone used to have.)  Both list Twelve Percent Imports and have the standard Surgeon Generals Warning, so we discussed that maybe they print the majority for the most restrictive place they are going.  Pretty interesting, and definitely an amazing beer.

We have another idea lined up, and you'll probably see another post in a couple weeks.

Cheers.