Stone Brewing is a brewery headquartered in Escondido, California, USA. Founded in 1996 in San Marcos, California, it is the largest brewery in Southern California. Based on 2016 sales volume it is the ninth largest craft brewery in the United States.
The brewery's first beer was Stone Pale Ale, which the company considers to be its flagship ale. The company's best known brand is Arrogant Bastard Ale, which has been described as a "watershed beer" that "put San Diego on the craft brew map." Since 2015 Arrogant Bastard has operated as its own product line, Bastard Brewing, produced at multiple breweries around the country. Most of Stone's beers are characteristic of west-coast craft brews, meaning that they have a high hop content. Compared to the macro-produced lagers, many Stone brews feature alcohol percentages that are well above average, ranging from 4.8% to 13%.
Stone Brewing is rated as a "world class brewery" by the two largest beer enthusiast websites, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate. Stone Brewing has been voted by the readers of Beer Advocate as the #1 "All Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth."
Video Stone Brewing Co.
History
Stone opened in San Marcos in 1996 at the location currently home to Port Brewing Company and The Lost Abbey. Local designer/illustrator Thomas K. Matthews created the original gargoyle in 1996. He also drew the Arrogant Bastard Ale, Stone Ruination IPA and Stone Levitation Ale gargoyles, as well as barley and hops motifs. In 2006, Stone relocated from the original brewery to a new, custom-designed facility in Escondido. In 2013 the company opened a packaging hall just south of the brewery which houses the bottling and keg lines. The brewery in Escondido produced 325,645 US beer barrels in 2015. The site is also home to a restaurant, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Escondido, a 8,500-square-foot (790 m2) restaurant with a large outdoor patio and 1 acre (4,000 m2) of gardens. The brewery also houses a Stone Company Store which sells Stone merchandise as well as 1- and 2-liter growlers and 40-ounce and can that can be filled with Stone's year-round beers and special releases.
In May 2013 a second Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens opened in the Liberty Station development in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego. The 23,500-square-foot (2,180 m2) facility cost $8 million and can seat 700 patrons. It is housed in the former mess hall and several other historic buildings of the former Naval Training Center San Diego.
In 2013 Stone opened a location in Terminal 2 of the San Diego International Airport.
In addition to the locations at Escondido and Liberty Station, there are Stone Company Stores in Oceanside, Pasadena, and in San Diego's Little Italy community. The stores sell beer in bottles, kegs and growlers.
In June 2008, Stone Brewing covered the roof of the brewery with solar panels, cutting their energy costs nearly in half. The 1,561 roof-mounted solar modules will offset more than 538,000 pounds (244,000 kg) of carbon emissions over its lifetime, which is equivalent to planting 204 acres (0.83 km2) of trees.
In Summer 2014, the company announced plans to open Stone Brewing Berlin in the German capital. A 100 hectoliter brewery with onsite can filling in Berlin Mariendorf went into operation in June 2016. At that time, Stone Berlin began distributing Stone IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale to Austria, the Baltics, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. As of May 2016 a corner of Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Berlin called "The Library Bar" opened to the public. The full restaurant and gardens will open in summer 2016.
On October 8, 2014 sources indicated Stone Brewing had chosen Richmond, VA as the site for its first brewery in the eastern United States. The other two finalists for the brewery were Columbus, Ohio and Norfolk, VA. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe made the formal announcement about the new brewery on October 9, 2014. The brewery held the opening of the Stone Company Store Richmond in March 2016 and began brewing, kegging and bottling Stone IPA in July 2016.
In May 2016 the company announced plans to open a tap room and 10-barrel brewing system in Napa, California, the heart of California's wine country. The new facility will be housed in the historic Borrero building in downtown Napa and is expected to open in 2017.
Maps Stone Brewing Co.
Beers
Stone beers are bottled in 22-ounce and 12-ounce bottles, 12-ounce and 16-ounce cans and occasionally 500 ml, 750 ml, and 3-liter bottles.
Year-round Releases
Seasonal Releases
Stone Vertical Epic Ale series
Between 2002 and 2012, Stone released a series of eleven beers under the Stone Vertical Epic Ale header. Each one uses a different Belgian Strong Ale recipe and is designed, when the release is complete, to complement its partners in a tasting of all eleven, one after the other (a "vertical tasting"). Each is released one year, one month, and one day apart, beginning with the first on February 2, 2002 (02.02.02 in a common date format on the Gregorian calendar); thus, the second was released on March 3, 2003 (03.03.03), the third on April 4, 2004, and so on. The last in the series was the Stone 12.12.12 Vertical Epic Ale.
Collaborations
Since 2008, Stone has released a series of collaboration beers jointly with other brewers.
Arrogant Brewing
In 2015 Stone Brewing announced it would separate Arrogant Bastard into its own product line, to be produced "on the road" in conjunction with other breweries including Great Divide, Maui Brewing, Brew Dog, and Maine Beer Company.
Awards
Stone has won several awards at major international beer competitions.
See also
- Beer in San Diego County, California
- Beer in the United States
References
External links
- Stone Brewing Official Site
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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