As far as the glass, the bubbles were steady and from the bottom, not clinging to the side of the glass. I take great care in cleaning my glassware properly. To the point were my wife gets annoyed with my “anal retentiveness” about my glasses.

As far as the beer goes, I understand about creative license and specialty ales, but if you are going to call it an imperial red shouldn’t it have the base character of a red ale, why not call it an American Strong ale? (http://www.stonebrew.com/13th/ale/) It really boils down to personal preferences and palates. The taste of the beer did not appeal to me, I didn’t like the way the flavors interacted.

If you continue to read my beer reviews and listen to my podcasts, you’ll see that it isn’t an east coast vs west coast, who cares. I try to take a beer for what it is and what it claims to be.

As to the beer, I seem to be on the rare side, in as much as I hated Stone when i first tried them. I came from the school of stouts and porters, malt, malt, malt, but as time has worn on I have come to appreciate a few things about what they do. As far as “balance”, I cannot agree that “balance” is a necessity, CERTAINLY some styles dictate it, but this is a specialty Ale, so downgrading it for something that it doesn’t have to have seems wrong.

The suggestion that cellaring is a bad idea is a clue that fresh hop sharpness is the Brewmasters plan, not the balanced melding of flavors that aging can often bring.

I am not impressed by the so-called San Diego scene, but on the other hand I have to defend the “Left Coast” or “Gonzo” styles when they seem ( imho ) to be drastically misunderstood by beer lovers in the Old Northwest and East. Stone is not Brooklyn or Boston, and it shouldn’t be downgraded for not being what it isn’t… No?