So this was our first taste testing to see how our clone stacked up against the real brew. I love Stone’s Ruination IPA, so we set out to make a clone a couple of months back. We had a little time today so we thought that the Beer Barons would see how our IPA stacked up against Stone’s. We had two different IPA’s to test against the Ruination. Our Green Top was dry hopped with cascade hops and our Sliver Top was dry hopped with crystal hopps (we picked the wrong hops at the store) The notes. We threw in a Speak Easy IPA as a test IPA to the bunch:
Green Top:
- Needs more aroma
- ruination has a stronger more astringent finish
- its aroma is definately more pronounced
- Our color was a little bit darker
- I like a darker IPA
- Final thought:
- It’s a good start but we need to add more aroma
- If we bump up the hops, we need to go up to a double IPA
Silver Top
- Better then the Speak Easy IPA
Stone Brewery Ruination IPA
- almost too astringent finish
- it has a “bite”
- ours is mellower
- the color is a slightly dark golden
- One Barron thought this is what an IPA should taste like
- he gives this IPA a 7.5 out of 10
Speak Easy IPA
- Really malty
- malt on the taste and aroma
- tastes like a heavily hopped malty beer
- Really light blond color
- It’s drinkable but we would never go out of our way to buy it again.