Beer comparisons

Last night I did a little A/B testing of my Ruination Clone vs. Stone's Ruination IPA and my Abstract Bastage vs. Stone's Double Bastard. The concensus was that both were a very close match for its Stone counterpart.

Ruination comparison: Same color, but Ruination was filtered and clear, while mine had a lot of residual yeast in it. Ruination was also more carbonated, which I assume is an artifact of bottling. I prefer my IPAs to be have a very low carbonation.

Double Bastard comparison: Once poured, you could barely tell the difference. Mine was maybe a tad darker. Taste wises they were also nearly identical, with mine having a bit more of a sweet aftertaste. More aging and/or a proper secondary stage would probably remove that difference. This one was especially surprising, since I didn't really model it after Double Bastard, merely started with an Arrogant Bastard Clone and tweaked it to what I thought would be appropriate for a strong ale.