Stone Brewing Co. - RuinTen IPA

What's up everybody?! It's the first of the month and I'm jumping into this month full steam ahead, hitting the ground running. What's that mean? Well, I've got a bunch of "new" beers in my fridge right now that I'm planning on reviewing for the blog. Hopefully you'll come along for the ride.

Tonight I'm drinking the latest release from Stone Brewing Co, this is their RuinTen which is their 10th anniversary salute to Stone Ruination. Originally released last year as sort of a one off kind of thing, Stone is planning to release this annually to the masses. They spoke and Stone listened. Kudos to Stone for making their fans happy (just like they did with Sublimely Self Righteous). So let's get into the beer and see how it holds up to the hype.

Ruinten pours out a very clear auburn/amber color. Maybe some golden hues on the sides of the glass but this is definitely a beautiful amber color. There is a ton of carbonation billowing up from the bottom of the glass. The pour left behind a real nice finger and a half of foamy, almost silky, white head. It sticks around for a little while and leaves behind a nice soapy white lacing. This looks like a really nice DIPA. Let's get the nose.

Right away, big dank hops. Just really aggressive and in your face hops. That's followed up by an immediate smack of citrus. Big grapefruit and tangerine. A lot of a syrupy kind of peach juice is right there with the citrus, holding hands while it pretty much uppercuts your sense of smell. There's some nice pine needle coming through to sort of clear out the remnants of your nostrils after the citrus and peach assault. You get some onion and garlic to coincide with the sweetness of the peaches. This just smells like a really awesome DIPA. I'm tired of typing. I'm drinking now. 

Yep. First thing you get is a MASSIVE amount of hop bitterness. This is a palate destroyer. No doubt about it. The bitterness just floods the mouth leaving everything else in it's wake. Sides of the palate you get the citrus. Big tangerine and orange. A nice grapefruit lingering as well. The peach syrupy sweetness sort of picks up where the hop assault left off. It does a nice job of kind of cleaning the palate out. Sort of like a street sweeper, just sweeping aside all that is not worthy. RuinTen finishes very dry and leaves behind more bitterness. This is one seriously heavy beer. Little bit of alcohol on the back end with a nice warming sensation down the chest. But just really great shit here from Stone.

So honestly, this might be my favorite hoppy beer from Stone. I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of their IPA and I'm so-so with regular Ruination. It's not that they aren't good, but just not my personal favorites. This however, is just fucking amazing. Honestly, this might be one of the most bitter, hop assaults I've had in recent memory. And while it's an all out assault on the tastebuds and nostrils, it really is well balanced. It's not just one dimensional like say an Arrogant Bastard. RuinTen is just incredible stuff and Stone absolutely fucking killed it with this beer. GET THIS IF YOU CAN.

Rating: A+