Why Wait Till 12-12-12?

A couple weeks ago I decided that I wasn't going to wait until 2012 to open ANY of my Stone Vertical Epics. Of course that only consisted of one '06 and a few '07's I just bought. I opened the '06 with my buddy Milty a while back and decided last night was a good night to crack open my first '07. The 06.06.06 was a pretty tasty Belgian dark ale, though not the best I've had. This 07.07.07 was VERY tasty, and right up there with the better Belgian Golden Ales. Of course, it is unique being that it is a hybrid of a Tripel and a Saison. It might have helped a little more if I had ever had more than one Saison (Lost Abbey Red Barn). Admittedly, I'm not sure if I was able to pick up many of the nuances of its saison heritage, but the Tripel aspect really did shine.

The '07 pours with a nice dark golden color, ever so slightly orange, although I was drinking this on the back patio at night in dim lighting. Aroma is contributed by the Belgian yeast, a good deal of fruit in the aroma and also a bit of must (saison heritage?) and earthiness which I thought was coming through from the hops. The taste evolves from a bitter initial bite, to fruit over the middle of the tongue, to some subdued earthy/mustiness in the end. This beer is carbonated on the higher end of things and I liked it that way. Sometimes Tripels or other Belgian Strong Golden Ales get a bit viscous, or sticky, and it seemed like the carbonation cut that down a little. I also thought that this beer tasted better at its colder temperatures, more so than the last 1/4th of the glass that had warmed up a bit. This was a pretty nice beer to drink, and although I couldn't really bring myself to giving it any higher than a 4 in any of the Beer Advocate rating categories, I probably would have scored it higher in an "overall" category (strange I know, but I am an enigma). Overall, I gave it a 4.0 on BA (higher than its average so far of 3.85).