Feature Beer Friday! - Russian River Pliny The Elder

Last night I had a couple of beer friends over for some tasting / reviewing for my Feature Beer Friday! series.  Typically I try to stick with locally available beers and throw in a mix of regionally available beers from TX or Alabama, but when Brenton Day of TheAleRunner.com offered to bring over a Pliny, who was I to say no?  (I also stole the picture from him... he'll have to get over it.) So we're going a little out of the region today, but check back the next few weeks for some Southern Tier reviews, which just recently came to Louisiana!

A little more about Pliny The Elder from Russian River Brewing... it's the third highest ranked Double IPA on BeerAdvocate, and it also has the 2nd highest amount of ratings in the top 50.  So basically, a lot of people have tried it, and a lot of people love it.  Russian River is from Santa Rosa, CA in wine country, but they make some of the best beers in the world.  In addition to some awesome IPAs Russian River has a killer line of sour/wild ales that are among the best in the world.  Pliny The Elder is their year-round DIPA available on draft and in bottles, and for those looking to try it I would recommend one of several websites that offers beer shipped to your door, or talk to a friend on the West coast or in Colorado and see if they'll help you out!

On to the review... 

Reviewers: Eric Ducote (BR Beer Scene), Brenton Day (The Ale Runner.com), and Dustin Davis.

Serving: 1 pint, 1.25 fluid ounce bottle.

Appearance: "Copper color with copious amounts of head," was Dustin's comment.

Aroma: Floral & citrus hops, I picked up some pine as well.  Brenton said it was like a "cat pissed on the Christmas tree."  He has cats, and he gave it a 23/25 so I guess that's a good thing.

Taste: Brenton and I both thought it was pine dominant with the hops, but it was never so out of balance that I thought it was bitter for the sake of bitter.  

Mouthfeel: Easy to drink for such a big beer.  

Overall: This is a world-class beer and it lives up to the hype.  One of the best DIPAs around, if you get the chance, give it a try! 


Overall Rating: 89
My Rating: 89

Feature Beer Friday! - Sierra Nevada / Russian River Brux

This weeks feature beer comes to us from a couple of highly regarded California breweries, Sierra Nevada and Russian River.  Sierra Nevada is one of the nation's largest craft breweries but still puts out excellent beers on a regular basis and some really fantastic seasonal and special release beers.  Russian River is unfortunately not available in Louisiana but they are best know for their Pliny IPAs and a remarkable lineup of sours.  

 

For this beer, the two breweries collaborated on their domesticated wild ale, using Belgian yeast strains for primary fermentation, but putting some brett years (gives off a characteristic sour flavor) into the bottles for secondary bottle fermentation.  There are still some of these available around BR, and after this review I think it ages well, so go get one!

 

Reviewers: Eric Ducote (BR Beer Scene), Jay Ducote (Bite And Booze), Jeremy Spikes  and James Lawson (Whiskeybomb.com), and Brenton Day (TheAleRunner.com)

Serving: 750ml bottle, corked & caged.

Appearance: "Deep gold, hazy, white head." "Pale & foggy," was Jay's comment.  No bad scores, but nothing amazing either.

Aroma: Spicy but still sour... it really reminded me of a fireball candy wrapped in a sour skittle.

Taste: This really smoothed out the aroma, blending the flavors nicely into an easy drinking but still sour package.  Jay picked up notes of clove and allspice, while Brenton also found some banana.  

Mouthfeel: A very flavorful finish, and I loved the funk.

Overall: This one scored very well, James said that he would highly recommend it and I agree.  This is a really pleasing sour that aged very well and should continue to do so.  

Overall Rating: 84

My Rating: 88

The 50 Best Beers In America!

Just thought I'd share a link with everyone... the American Homebrewer's Association asked their readers (sure to be big time beer lovers, right?) to rank their 20 best beers, and put together all the results to declare their 50 best beers in America!  The full article and list is here... and the winner for the third time in a row was Pliny The Elder by Russian River.  I tried it at a beer tasting at The Avenue Pub a while back and it is most certainly a tasty brew.

Amazingly I've tried 39 out of these 52 (yeah, there were ties at the end) beers.  Honestly I'm pretty proud of that considering our limited selection in Louisiana.  As far as I can tell, only 14 of these 52 beers are distributed to Louisiana, and that is mostly the Stone and Sierra Nevada selections that really scored high. 

The same poll was also used to determine the 25 best breweries in America, with Dogfish Head coming out on top.  Again Sierra Nevada and Stone placed high (both in the top 5) and they are the main ones that we can get here in Louisiana.  

Anyway... what do you think about the list?  How many of the top 50... er... 52 have you tried?  And more importantly, do you think you could hook me up with any of the ones I'm missing out on?

Cheers everyone!

*Image credit: American Homebrewers Association