The Stone IPA/Smoked Porter Blend

A couple months ago I had posted about this surprisingly delicious IPA-Porter blend I had at Boston Beer Works. It was so interesting so I decided I'd try to recreate something similar using some Stone brews. So the other weekend I finally got around trying out this beer blend, using Stone's IPA and Smoked Porter.


While both these beers are beauties by themselves, I was hoping together they would make something just as (and maybe even more) enjoyable. Here is what the actual blend looked like...


You can kind of see it keeps most the color from the porter, but actually gains a bit of transparency once mixed with the IPA. The smokiness kind of takes over the beer, but the hops from the IPA definitely comes through towards the end of each sip, which is what I thought was so cool about the BBW blend. I blended half and half, and with the Smoked Porter in at 5.9% ABV and the IPA at 6.9% ABV, there wasn't any drastic change in alcohol content. The drinkability was alright, but we decided to enjoy the remainder of each bottle as how Stone intended them.

Although this blend didn't seem to work as well as what Beer Works was pulling off (not really a suprise), it was still interesting and definitely something different to drink. I know porters typically have that "smokey" flavor to them and I don't know if Stone's is a more intense version, but a less smokey porter might have worked better. I'd like to try some other blends, but I'm not sure what would work well together. I'll have to do some searching to see what maybe other brewers are coming up with or if any home brewers have had success with beer blending.