Five-buck bomber! Stone Tangerine Express IPA is a five-buck bomber! At least, at Target it is. I paid $4.74 for a 22-ounce bottle at Target the other day. Total Wine has it for $4.99 for a bomber as well. You can get a six-pack of cans at Target for $10.44, too. Now, you may not think a five-buck bomber is a big deal, but these days they are few and far between. Technically, the six-pack is still cheaper at 5 cents an ounce versus 22 cents for the bomber. Still, sometimes you just want a few beers, which is really about what a bomber holds.

None of this would matter if the beer weren’t good. It is, of course. Stone Tangerine Express IPA is quite tasty and uses whole fruit to complement the fruity flavors thrown off by hops. Stone says on the label:

This ain’t no just-add-juice approach. This one is for adults. We use bountiful whole tangerine purée, which brings pithy, crisp bitterness to the citrus flavor. In addition to the complexities of the tangerine — the likes of which you can only get by using the whole fruit — we judiciously employ just a hint of whole pineapple for a backnote (you’d likely not even pick it out of the mix if we didn’t tell you it was there). We’re not looking for a sweet concoction to appease the “I want my beer to taste like fruit juice” crowd. This is Stone. We like our IPAs to taste like IPAs. Big, bold and not for kids.

Not for kids? Here I was thinking no IPS was for kids. Anyway, Stone Tangerine Express IPA has an alcohol content of 6.7% by volume with 75 IBUs. I spent a whole paragraph telling you what I paid for it.

Stone Tangerine Express IPA pours to a bright orange color with a thick cauliflower head and a zesty citrus peel nose. Taking a sip, the beer has a moderate caramel maltiness followed by a huge tangerine citrus peel zest in the palate. There’s a hint of pineapple fruit and a long, very dry, very bitter zesty finish.

This is a very drinkable and very delicious fruity IPA that doesn’t lose the essence of an IPA. I think I might have picked out pineapple despite what Stone says, but I might have ascribed it to hops rather than real fruit. Is this a fruit beer or is it an IPA? You could make a case for either, but to me it was more IPA than fruit beer, so that’s how I will peg it.

This is a great beer at a great price, however you style it.



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