5.6

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Bottle at the RBWG grand tasting
Cloudy brown with a small beige head and some lacing. Aroma and flavors of hot peppers
Wow, this is hot. I’m glad this was my last beer of the RBWG 2014 grand tasting. It killed my taste buds and woke me up for the walk back to the hotel for the after party.

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Bottle at RBWG. Pours amber with off white head. Nose and taste of hot chili pepper, some caramel. Mostly pepper heat. Kind of intense, but I like that when it comes to chilies. Medium body.

7

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

500 ml corked and caged bottle received from my in-laws as a Christmas gift. The pour is a hazed copper orange with not much of a tan head. The aroma is vegetal earthy pepper, along with semi sweet malt. The taste is the rich sweet caramel malt and the hot spice peppers immediately. The pepper burns a bit, then lingers. The caramel and toffee sweetness of the malt cuts the hot a bit towards the finish. The palate is medium bodied, soft natural carbonation and the spice heat and malt sweet finish. This managed and balanced the spice nicely, unlike Punishment where the high alcohol dried out the finish and left the hot spice exposed.

8.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Expensive 50cl bottle pours with a murky deep copper body and has an amber colored core and supports a tan head of foam. The aroma pulses with chili meat and heat and a sort of a fruity nearly sweet smelling chili madness. Wow! Behind that I get modest levels of oak and bourbon. The chili peppers are just big and bruising up front and rich as well. If you love peppers this aroma is for you. The taste starts with a flush of sweet maltiness and then steams into an avalanche of chili pepper complexity that takes over the experience. This has big bold chili pepper meat that slides smoothly into chili pepper heat that burns about mid palate straight into the throat. Here and there mild notes of caramel and toffee come to the surface with faint echoes of oak and briefly sweet bourbon. Holy Hell! This is something. It is full big brash rich flavorful and hurtful chili pepper. So now this has set the plate to start digging into the Punishment as it feels that this beer has already wrecked and somewhat numbed the palate. This is going to be fun trying these back to back. Great experience.

6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6

I really didn’t expect much, having read the reviews, but this is better than I thought it might be (at $16 a bottle, it better). Pours a dark copper-brown, with mid-sized head, that dissipates rapidly. Aroma is all peppers, like sniffing a bottle of Tabasco. Flavor is also pepper-dominant, but not nauseatingly so. It also tends to build in heat level, so if you sip it slowly, it’s not a drainpour. Still don’t know why Stone would wreck a beer like this, but it was an interesting experiment.

7.2

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

2013 series. Batch #8. Aged in Kentucky Bourbon Barrels. This one poured a dark copper color with a foamy, small white head. Aroma was fruity pepper notes, not overly hot in the aroma but this one had a notable fleshy flavor, but not with a ton of heat. Taste begins with some caramel and fruits. There is a small fleshy heat that starts to build, but the finish is where the heat packs its most powerful punch. The throat begins to open up and the heat pours in. And it burns... it burns. Honestly, as someone who LOVES heat, this is definitely hot. I enjoyed this gimmick.

7

So Spicy. So Much Heat.

7.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

750 c&c from Capitol Beer in Sacramento, CA. Pours hazy dark orange/brown with a slight beige head. Aroma is pepper. I’ve done Punishment, is this to be double jeopardy? Med + body. Flavor is all pepper. I don’t think it’s so strong as Punishment, but it’s approaching brutal. Quite the challenge. Strong as it is, I think it is somewhat subtle. Right. Of course it is. So why a high rating? It just seems the right thing to do. And I do like peppers.

1.4

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 1 | Flavor - 1 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 0.5

500mL bottle, pours a cloudy dark amber with a medium beige head. Nose brings out loads of burning hot peppers - I don't get anything but burning and pain. Flavour is retardedly hot, with shitloads of burning pain and insane chili peppers. I don't get any of the bourbon or base beer, as this is completely ruined by the chili. Not the hottest beer I've had - that award goes to El Toro Ghost Chili - but it's quite insane nonetheless. Very offensive and nothing elegant about this. Revolting and unpalatable in every way. Shame on Stone for releasing this atrocity and shame on me for buying it.

4.2

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3

500ml C&C: Cracked this open after hot wings… it smells hot. Dirty pepper hot. I can honestly smell chili peppers ahead of the smoke and barrel. Pungent and moderately offensive. Beautiful shade of amber and a creamy tan head. Thick, sticky lacing. It looks great and all, but with this wicked hot aroma I don’t really want to drink it… but I do. The taste is just like the aroma suggests and instantly burns my lips and the back of my throat. Chili pepper flavor is evident, smoke, ash, and wood. It’s hot. Oppressively hot. Three sips in and I want to quit. Why the f#*k did I open this? Worse yet, why the f#*k did I spend $18 on this? Expectations were moderate here, as Stone is one of my longtime favorites… they missed it here. I could appreciate the Ghost Face Killah, but this is just brutal… four sips and I’m done. Wow. Major league drain pour… seriously, I’m considering throwing this glass away now.