Backed by over a quarter-century of hoppy history spread over a national footprint, Stone Brewing is one of San Diego County’s most well-known beer companies. The North County interest has grown a lot since debuting in a small industrial complex in San Marcos. Its flagship Escondido brewhouse now pumps out 120- and 240-barrel batches, while its East Coast brewery in Richmond, Virginia, brews up 250 barrels at a time. Despite Stone’s reputation for quality IPAs, it continues to tweak its portfolio and has found a new audience with its salt-and-lime lager, Buenaveza. Yet, here at home, the company has been challenged by consumers’ ultra-localism.
Spurred by a mixture of civic pride and pandemic-era patriotism, the majority of craft-beer fans patronize smaller brewing operations with a neighborhood focus. It’s helped those operations stay in business through COVID-19, but it’s not all about support. With smaller brewing systems—sometimes as small as one or two barrels in size—those types of breweries can consistently introduce new ales and lagers, giving even their most loyal regulars cause to come back for fear of missing out on the next big thing. Large regional breweries can’t compete on that level, but Stone has found a way to get in the new-release game care of its One Batch Dispatch series of beers.
Though its core beers carry the day at grocery and other retail establishments, Stone has long endeavored to reward visitors to its destination restaurants and tasting rooms with fun, experimental and even outlandish creations going beyond its year-round and even seasonal offerings. One Batch Dispatch was developed as a way to give fans something new and fresh, but this time in a canned format to allow them to enjoy another side of Stone from outside its venues. That’s done by taking small-batch beers created at the company’s facilities in Escondido, Liberty Station and Richmond, Virginia, then scaling them up, canning them and releasing them on a specific date at all of Stone’s locations.
Since the debut of the first beer in the series last September, the program has been a smashing success, drawing beer enthusiasts to Stone’s locations in big numbers. That inaugural offering, Stone Orange Scream Hazy IPA, sold out in less than 24 hours, and every release since has been bought up by the company’s fans. It’s particularly interesting considering how far outside the norm some of those beer styles are from what the company has traditionally produced.
The following are the One Patch Dispatch beers that have been released to-date…
- Stone Orange Scream Hazy IPA: A vanilla- and orange-laced homage to creamsicles from Liberty Station Brewing Manager Kris Ketcham.
- Stone Spirit Shroud: A hazy IPA brewed on Stone’s six-barrel pilot system in Escondido by Senior Brewing Innovation Manager Steve Gonzalez.
- Rusty Barrel / Stone Mango Maya Milkshake IPA: The winning recipe from a Richmond homebrew competition.
- Jason Dunn / Stone Pineapple Dunn Upside Down Wee Heavy: The winning recipe from the 2020 edition of Stone’s annual AHA homebrew competition.
- Stone Simcoe & Strata & Sabro Oh My! Hazy IPA: Ketcham’s response to a challenge to use hops starting with the same letter (other than “C”).
- Stone Notorious PB&J Imperial Berliner Weisse: A peanut butter and strawberry fan fave from Liberty Station.
The most recent One Batch Dispatch beer is Stone Travelogue Triple IPA. Scheduled for release tomorrow, June 22, it’s a 10.7% full-bodied yet “shockingly smooth” behemoth hopped with Amarillo, Mosaic and Loral, that was one of several IPAs Gonzalez developed for Stone’s 2022 release calendar.
“While it is fun and creative to try something new, I really appreciate that we are stepping outside of our comfort zones to actually try crazy beers that are better-equipped for smaller breweries,” says Ketcham. “I think that the true craft of One Batch Dispatch is that our Escondido brewing team only gets one shot to scale our five-to-ten-barrel pilot recipes to a single, approximately 120-barrel brew. These beers have minimal margin for adjustment or error and are typically outside the wheelhouse of what our production brewery was built for. It speaks volumes to how amazing and experienced our brew crew is to be able to pull these beers off.”
When asked about future beers that will be released as part of the series, as one might expect, a number of IPAs are on the scheduled. There will also be a red IPL (India pale lager) and possibly some seasonally inspired beers come the end of the year. But for the most part, it’s wide open since the brew team is encouraged to bring their ideas or pitch something in line with trends they are noticing within the industry. Requests from fans are also considered for future beers, even if they are pulled from the past.
“Over the years, we’ve put together plenty of recipes that our fans wish would go into full production. Doing the One Batch Dispatch program has given a few of these recipes a chance to be brewed to a production scale,” says Ketcham. “We’ve only scratched the surface, so keep your eyes open and try each release.”
To stay apprised of One Batch Dispatch releases, fans are advised to follow Stone’s social media accounts.