Ok ok, I couldn't resist. I am not a Star Trek fan, but I am a Big Bang Theory fan. So for me, Wil Wheaton means Sheldon's arch nemisis, not a Star Trek character. Anyways, back to the beer.
First, some background: From what I gather, Stone Brewery had intended to honor the 10,000th person to sign up for their messaging service in some way. As it turns out, that someone did not end up being your average Joe. It was Stand By Me/ Star Trek star Wil Wheaton. Coincidentally, in addition to being semi-famous, Mr. Wheaton also enjoyed home brewing. Stone Brewery's Greg Koch took advantage of this, and proposed a collaboration beer. They also brought in Drew Curtis of fark.com, and together they created W00t. But who cares? Is it any good?!
The answer is: Of course it is. I am currently in NY for a wedding, and I brought this bottle along with some homebrews to take this time to relax. I wasn't sure what to expect from this monster stout, but being from Stone I had high hopes. My initial pour revealed very little head (due to a bad pour, I'm afraid) however the second glass had a thin head that faded quickly. On the nose, this beer smells of chocolate and coffee. Since coffee is my second favorite beverage, I am always happy to find I stout with coffee-like features. The mocha follows through on the taste, accompanied by a slight bourbon taste; courtesy of 1/4 of the volume of this beer being soaked in bourbon barrels. This is followed up by a considerably strong nutty taste, which I found out after some quick research comes from the pecans which were added. Despite it incredible flavor, the biggest surprise of this beer was its lack of bite. This beer had about as much kick as your average stout, weighing in at about 5-6% ABV. This bad boy is 13% though, and as hinted upon earlier, I had a couple glasses of it. In closing, I recommend you get a hold of a bottle of this limited release if you can, call a buddy, and split it between the two of you.
And now, my first negative review. Before enjoying all that was W00t, I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the small town of Owego, NY (Original's) and I got myself a beer. Admittedly, the selection was limited, so I grabbed an unknown IPA: Henry Weinhard's Woodland IPA. Let's just say I should have gone with a Boston Lager. Perhaps I am spoiled by the likes of Dogfish Head and Stone, but to me, this was no IPA. In fact, I question whether this was an ale at all. It had a distinct lager taste, and moreover it had a distinct CHEAP lager taste. For all it's claims of hops on the bottle, they were nowhere to be found. I had assumed when I was able to twist the cap that I wasn't getting anything special, but this was a true let down.
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