Monday is here, and it’s time to start another week. Pick of the Weekend is our weekly post where we recap our favorite brews of the weekend past…

It seems like we spent the whole weekend at breweries, and between the birthday parties, seeing old friends, and taking tours, we had some awesome beers! The best of the weekend was Stone Brewing’s new 10th Anniversary Ruination IPA, but the competition was fierce!The weekend’s parade of beers actually started off a day early with a bottle of Stone’s hop-monster anniversary beer and a cigar to celebrate Flag Day (a long-standing tradition here) on Thursday. I knew it wouldn’t be giving the Double IPA a fair tasting since it would be competing with the cigar, but I also knew that it wouldn’t be the last bottle of Ruination 10th that I’d be drinking this summer. Surprisingly the beer did stand up to the cigar, and it was glorious. A huge hop assault on the nose and palate, with a dry and herbal finish. There is some heat from the alcohol, but the 10.8%ABV is masked very well by the full body and toffee-like malt flavors. It certainly isn’t a beer for those on-the-fence about IPAs, but for seasoned hop-heads it is a flat-out amazing beer.  Our initial opinions were validated after splitting another couple of bottles among friends on Saturday night. If you see this beer on store shelves or on a tap-list around town, and you like hops, buy it!

Saturday we celebrated a friend’s birthday at The Pub at Golden Road, where we held court for many hours, and managed to sample pretty-much everything on the tap-list (though I think we somehow missed the Get Up Offa That Brown). I can’t get enough of the tart and funky Berliner Wiese, though the rest of the table had very mixed opinions on it. We also caught a new keg of the Imperial XPA getting tapped and enjoyed a great many glasses of the amber-hued pale ale. One of Golden Roads bigger beers, the XPA clocks-in at 7.4%ABV and is packed full of resinous and piney hops. Reminiscent of Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale in aroma, the flavor has a distinct toasted-malt character that stood up to the heavy hopping nicely. Another delicious local beer from Golden Road, and this one should keep the hop-heads happy!

Sunday we ventured to San Diego to tour Mission Brewery. We sampled their full-line and will have a post on the brewery and their beers this week. Our favorite was a toss-up between the Shipwrecked Double IPA and the Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout.