Saturday, October 08, 2016
The Best Outside Event of GABF Week
Half a mile east of the Colorado Convention Center and the hubbub of the Great American Beer Festival sits the McNichols Civic Center Building, which hosts smaller and typically more staid events. But on Friday afternoon, it was the site of what is arguably the best non-GABF event of GABF week, and it was for three hours the center of the beer universe.
Denver Rare Beer Tasting, now in its eighth year, is at its heart a plea for better health. Founded by beer enthusiast and cancer survivor Rick Lyke, it is the largest annual fund-raiser for his charity Pints for Prostates, which has brought in $1.3 million over the past eight years to raise awareness about prostate cancer and to offer free testing both at the event and outside the convention center this week.
But while Lyke can brag of how much the event has helped those who come by - more than 10 percent of men getting the testing have elevated prostate-specific antigen levels that require them to see the doctor for treatment - he realizes free testing alone won't garner so much attention. So, he uses the help of 54 acclaimed breweries, with another 40 still on the waiting list, that donate and pour some of their rarest, most complex and often barrel-aged creations to lend a hand.
Strolling through the event is like looking into the minds of the best beer makers in the country. Funky Buddha's Aged Chocwork Orange - an imperial milk porter given six months on Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels then infused with cocoa nibs and orange peel - was like biting into the fanciest chocolate you've ever tried and letting it swirl around your mouth.
The sours flowed as if they were water. Two Roads' 2015 Kriek, aged 18 months in oak barrels, delivered a phenomenally sharp cherry bite without being acidic. Russian River's Intinction - its STS Pils aged nine months in sauvignon blanc barrels with sauv-blanc grape juice added - was intriguing and easy on the palate. And it was being poured publicly for just the second time.
And if you just wanted to see how brewers could take a traditional flavor and turn it on its head, Holy City Brewing's Schmetterling, a smoked marzen aged 10 months in whisky barrels, was example number one. Both sweet and smoky, it broke all style guidelines and took you on an adventure.
Getting tickets to Denver Rare Beer Tasting isn't easy - they're $115 and sold out a full three months ago. But Lyke said that he knows of people who fly out to Denver for GABF week and attend this rather than any of the festival sessions. And after seeing the offerings the tasting has and understanding the impact the event can have on people's lives, it's not that hard to see why.
Half a mile east of the Colorado Convention Center and the hubbub of the Great American Beer Festival sits the McNichols Civic Center Building, which hosts smaller and typically more staid events. But on Friday afternoon, it was the site of what is arguably the best non-GABF event of GABF week, and it was for three hours the center of the beer universe.
Denver Rare Beer Tasting, now in its eighth year, is at its heart a plea for better health. Founded by beer enthusiast and cancer survivor Rick Lyke, it is the largest annual fund-raiser for his charity Pints for Prostates, which has brought in $1.3 million over the past eight years to raise awareness about prostate cancer and to offer free testing both at the event and outside the convention center this week.
But while Lyke can brag of how much the event has helped those who come by - more than 10 percent of men getting the testing have elevated prostate-specific antigen levels that require them to see the doctor for treatment - he realizes free testing alone won't garner so much attention. So, he uses the help of 54 acclaimed breweries, with another 40 still on the waiting list, that donate and pour some of their rarest, most complex and often barrel-aged creations to lend a hand.
Strolling through the event is like looking into the minds of the best beer makers in the country. Funky Buddha's Aged Chocwork Orange - an imperial milk porter given six months on Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels then infused with cocoa nibs and orange peel - was like biting into the fanciest chocolate you've ever tried and letting it swirl around your mouth.
The sours flowed as if they were water. Two Roads' 2015 Kriek, aged 18 months in oak barrels, delivered a phenomenally sharp cherry bite without being acidic. Russian River's Intinction - its STS Pils aged nine months in sauvignon blanc barrels with sauv-blanc grape juice added - was intriguing and easy on the palate. And it was being poured publicly for just the second time.
And if you just wanted to see how brewers could take a traditional flavor and turn it on its head, Holy City Brewing's Schmetterling, a smoked marzen aged 10 months in whisky barrels, was example number one. Both sweet and smoky, it broke all style guidelines and took you on an adventure.
Getting tickets to Denver Rare Beer Tasting isn't easy - they're $115 and sold out a full three months ago. But Lyke said that he knows of people who fly out to Denver for GABF week and attend this rather than any of the festival sessions. And after seeing the offerings the tasting has and understanding the impact the event can have on people's lives, it's not that hard to see why.
Labels: Barrel aging, Denver Rare Beer Tasting, Funky Buddha Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Holy City Brewing, Russian River, Two Roads Brewing
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Four Things I Learned at the Boulder Strong Ale Fest
For those of you who have never been to one of Avery Brewing's on-property festivals, it is hard to put into words how decadent they are.
At this past weekend's Strong Ale Fest, tasting stations offering eight beers each left participants with the choice between, say, Pliny the Younger, Strange's award-winning barleywine or several oak-aged offerings. Quality, normal porters and saisons stood little chance of being requested.
Even as attendees got accidentally drunk from tasting so many high-alcohol beers - and I defend the use of the term "accidentally," no matter how many people laughed when I used it Saturday - there was much to be remembered. (Especially if you were one of those geeks, like me, carrying around a notebook.) Here are some of the highlights:
1) The beer trend of 2013? How about monster coffee stouts? Sour beers have been hip for at least half a decade, and the offerings at the last two Great American Beer Festivals showed that oak barrels aren't up-and-coming; they're here. But the coffee bombs are truly on their way up.
Pizza Port Brewing's Bacon & Eggs, made with 25 pounds of roasters, was as smooth as it was bulky and java-heavy. And Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist - coming soon to Denver - offered a full mouth of coffee and cocoa in a startlingly tempting 11% ABV package. They were just two of many such offerings in a show that may point the way to the next great trend.
2) It's OK to use fruit in a big beer. Really. Anyone who got the joy of trying The Bruery's Five Golden Rings this Christmas season realized a brewmaster could add pineapple juice to the mix and still blow you out of the water with alcohol.
Avery's Missionary Position - its Reverend Belgian Quad with guava and pineapple - was refreshing and, dare we say, almost light and easy for a 10% booze blast. And the grape must that Odell added to its Amuste imperial porter was smooth enough to make it stand out in a room of darks.
3) The new generation of double IPAs are far more earthy and astringently bitter than their forebears. Classics of the style, such as Firestone Walker's Double Jack and Avery's Maharaja were assaulting in their citrus-fruit and flower-petal qualities, making them dangerously easy to enjoy. But the new breweries on the block have a different idea.
Gravity Brewing's Acceleration Double IPA, for example, showed off its 9.8% ABV in the most malt-forward way possible. And Telluride Brewing's Fishwater Double IPA presented a caramel initial taste before rolling out its bitterness gradually. Both were head-turners in their surprisingly non-citrus character, though it's yet to be seen whether they were unique to the style or the new - and slightly less approachable - standard bearers.
4) Sometimes the hype is worth it. For the most part, the Fearless Tasting Crew avoided long GABF lines in favor of exploring unknown breweries, and it's never stood in line for hours to get a ticket for one 10-oz. pour. But on Saturday, two almost cliched offerings really stole the show.
Crooked Stave - it of the ridiculous lines at every festival where it's pouring - put up the best beer of the fest with Sentience, a tart wild quad whose whiskey-barrel aging accented its sharpness perfectly. And the hands-down best hop bomb there was, yes, Pliny the Younger; Russian River's line-inducing triple IPA was pure benevolence, sliding sweetly over tongues of everyone who made the smart decision to seek it out.
At this past weekend's Strong Ale Fest, tasting stations offering eight beers each left participants with the choice between, say, Pliny the Younger, Strange's award-winning barleywine or several oak-aged offerings. Quality, normal porters and saisons stood little chance of being requested.
Even as attendees got accidentally drunk from tasting so many high-alcohol beers - and I defend the use of the term "accidentally," no matter how many people laughed when I used it Saturday - there was much to be remembered. (Especially if you were one of those geeks, like me, carrying around a notebook.) Here are some of the highlights:
1) The beer trend of 2013? How about monster coffee stouts? Sour beers have been hip for at least half a decade, and the offerings at the last two Great American Beer Festivals showed that oak barrels aren't up-and-coming; they're here. But the coffee bombs are truly on their way up.
Pizza Port Brewing's Bacon & Eggs, made with 25 pounds of roasters, was as smooth as it was bulky and java-heavy. And Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist - coming soon to Denver - offered a full mouth of coffee and cocoa in a startlingly tempting 11% ABV package. They were just two of many such offerings in a show that may point the way to the next great trend.
2) It's OK to use fruit in a big beer. Really. Anyone who got the joy of trying The Bruery's Five Golden Rings this Christmas season realized a brewmaster could add pineapple juice to the mix and still blow you out of the water with alcohol.
Avery's Missionary Position - its Reverend Belgian Quad with guava and pineapple - was refreshing and, dare we say, almost light and easy for a 10% booze blast. And the grape must that Odell added to its Amuste imperial porter was smooth enough to make it stand out in a room of darks.
3) The new generation of double IPAs are far more earthy and astringently bitter than their forebears. Classics of the style, such as Firestone Walker's Double Jack and Avery's Maharaja were assaulting in their citrus-fruit and flower-petal qualities, making them dangerously easy to enjoy. But the new breweries on the block have a different idea.
Gravity Brewing's Acceleration Double IPA, for example, showed off its 9.8% ABV in the most malt-forward way possible. And Telluride Brewing's Fishwater Double IPA presented a caramel initial taste before rolling out its bitterness gradually. Both were head-turners in their surprisingly non-citrus character, though it's yet to be seen whether they were unique to the style or the new - and slightly less approachable - standard bearers.
4) Sometimes the hype is worth it. For the most part, the Fearless Tasting Crew avoided long GABF lines in favor of exploring unknown breweries, and it's never stood in line for hours to get a ticket for one 10-oz. pour. But on Saturday, two almost cliched offerings really stole the show.
Crooked Stave - it of the ridiculous lines at every festival where it's pouring - put up the best beer of the fest with Sentience, a tart wild quad whose whiskey-barrel aging accented its sharpness perfectly. And the hands-down best hop bomb there was, yes, Pliny the Younger; Russian River's line-inducing triple IPA was pure benevolence, sliding sweetly over tongues of everyone who made the smart decision to seek it out.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Coffee beer, Crooked Stave, Epic Brewing, Festivals, Gravity Brewing, IPA, Odell Brewing, Pizza Port, Russian River, Telluride Brewing
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Bigger But - More Importantly - BolderWhen 83 breweries show up to a festival bringing the biggest beers they make, you expect a lot of bourbon barrel-aged stouts, double IPAs and Belgian-style tripels. And, yes, there were plenty of each of those at Saturday's ninth annual Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival.
But what really stuck out this year was not just how outrageously hoppy or malty the beverages gathered in the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort were, but how creative brewers have become in making beers of at least 7 percent alcohol by volume. And thus, the event served as a peek at what the future of beer might be.
"I think 20 years from now, we'll look back and recognize now as the point where the gloves came off and consumers really recognized what beer had to offer," said Dogfish Head maestro Sam Calagione, whose recent New Yorker profile only helped to raise the visibility of big beers.
Standing out among all the giant American experimenters and ageless Belgian masters, for example, was Altitude Chophouse and Brewery of Laramie, Wyo., a brewpub so small that it considered bottling but had to nix the idea because of cost concerns. Yet, it grabbed a lot of the talk at the festival with a Cayenne Cocoa Bock that creatively combined inky, chocolaty darkness with a late-breaking fleck of heat that served as a defibrillator for the tongue.
If it wasn't a peppery bock grabbing attention, then it was one of several Belgian pale ales that brewers were rolling out. Stone Brewing led the way with a Cali-Belgique IPA, first released in August, that artfully blended hoppy floralness with Belgian esters to create something shockingly smooth. But Utah-based Uinta Brewing and Belgium's La Chouffe were among the others who also put their own versions on display, with the Belgian-made entry having significantly less of a hop characteristic.
Big, gutsy saisons also are making their imprint on a style that hasn't been as bold in the past. Several were on display in Vail, including a very sweet and drinkable Saison Rue from California-based The Bruery, a beer that could become the boldest beer of the spring and summer seasons.
And, of course, the continuing fascination with Belgian-style sour ales remains in place. Between Russian River's latest batch of Consecration (which they cracked open at the Great American Beer Festival this year), Cambridge Brewing's Cerise Casee (my personal favorite beer of the GABF) and Deschutes Brewery's Dissident Old Bruin, the best trend in American beer continues to get better.
That said, it's not like the traditional big beers are going away. There were no less than 21 barleywines, 15 tripels, 11 double or imperial IPAs and six bourbon-barrel-aged beers on display. Tasting a hopped masterpiece like Flying Dog's Double Dog Double Pale Ale reassures you the extreme beers that have been the focus of the past 10 years are still evolving art forms.
But now there are tastes for everyone, and more is still to come. At talks over the course of the day, apple and pear beers, huge coffee porters and new experiments with Brettanomyces were all mentioned and may not be far away.
Yes, there truly is a big beer for everyone at this point. Now the trick is finding the time to drink them all.
Labels: Altitude Chophouse and Brewery, Big Beers, Cambridge Brewing, Deschutes Brewing, Flying Dog, Russian River, Stone Brewing, The Bruery, Uinta Brewing
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Exotic Beers - We've Only Just Begun
Ron Jeffries put it best when he said that even in Michigan, people are doing things with wild sour beers.
That's not to discount breweries in the Wolverine State, as Bell's, Michigan Brewing and Jeffries' own Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales each add something special to the beer world. But when you think of Michigan - home of rugged workers, time-tested American cars and smash mouth football (in most years) - it's not the first place you'd think of as an exotic beer emporium.
Yet, Jeffries' point was well taken: At the recent Great American Beer Festival, California, Colorado and Dogfish Head Brewing clearly no longer held the monopoly on exotic brews. Cambridge Brewing of Massachusetts dazzled with its experimental sours and barleywines. A pizza pub from Arkansas (Vino's) served a Christmas ale that may redefine the style. The silver medal for sour ales went to a brewery (Upstream) from Nebraska, for pete's sake.
And the exotic kept getting just a little, well, exoticker. Russian River Brewing, whose barrel-fermented, cherry-soaked Supplication had for a while served as the peak of the sour beer style, overshadowed its monster with a new creation, Consecration, aged in Cabernet barrels with 33 pounds of currants. (This will be available in Colorado liquor stores by March, brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo said.)
Dogfish Head, no longer content with breaking new barriers in hoppiness, is spending more time developing ancient recipes discovered by university archaeology professors. Take the Theobroma, an ancient Aztec recipe brewed with chiles, annetto seed, honey, cocoa nibs and cocoa powder. Sweet, slightly punchy on the back taste, absolutely unique.
"What I love is, (exotic) is subjective," Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione said at brewers' talk at the festival. "You've got to remember that 20 years ago, Anchor Steam was an extreme beer."
It's not hard now to walk into a store and find a quadruple Belgian or oak-aged imperial stout. What once was exotic in its rareness is now becoming exotic and yet accessible.
Some breweries have their rare beers that don't get sold with the rest. (If somebody finds Deschutes' sour brown The Dissident somewhere in the Denver area, I beg you to write me.) Other breweries are dedicated only to exotic beers.
That's the theory under which Jeffries founded Jolly Pumpkin in 2004. A man who used to brew a different wheat beer to be enjoyed with each pizza that was served at a pub where he used to work, he decided to be the first U.S. brewery to age 100 percent of its products in oak.
Its beers (available at a select number of Colorado liquor stores), like the tenderly spicy Fuego del Otono, don't shock the palate as much as they demand you to think about their complexity. And where there was nothing five years ago, there is now a determination to try what hasn't been tried. Jeffries admitted that he wakes up every day thinking of a new beer style.
So where does this trend, this experimentation, end? Talking to Jeffries, to Cilurzo, to Calagione, it doesn't.
"I don't think there's a lot off the top of my head I wouldn't consider," Jeffries said.
And remember, this is coming not from a Belgian, but from a guy who lives in Michigan.
Ron Jeffries put it best when he said that even in Michigan, people are doing things with wild sour beers.
That's not to discount breweries in the Wolverine State, as Bell's, Michigan Brewing and Jeffries' own Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales each add something special to the beer world. But when you think of Michigan - home of rugged workers, time-tested American cars and smash mouth football (in most years) - it's not the first place you'd think of as an exotic beer emporium.
Yet, Jeffries' point was well taken: At the recent Great American Beer Festival, California, Colorado and Dogfish Head Brewing clearly no longer held the monopoly on exotic brews. Cambridge Brewing of Massachusetts dazzled with its experimental sours and barleywines. A pizza pub from Arkansas (Vino's) served a Christmas ale that may redefine the style. The silver medal for sour ales went to a brewery (Upstream) from Nebraska, for pete's sake.
And the exotic kept getting just a little, well, exoticker. Russian River Brewing, whose barrel-fermented, cherry-soaked Supplication had for a while served as the peak of the sour beer style, overshadowed its monster with a new creation, Consecration, aged in Cabernet barrels with 33 pounds of currants. (This will be available in Colorado liquor stores by March, brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo said.)
Dogfish Head, no longer content with breaking new barriers in hoppiness, is spending more time developing ancient recipes discovered by university archaeology professors. Take the Theobroma, an ancient Aztec recipe brewed with chiles, annetto seed, honey, cocoa nibs and cocoa powder. Sweet, slightly punchy on the back taste, absolutely unique.
"What I love is, (exotic) is subjective," Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione said at brewers' talk at the festival. "You've got to remember that 20 years ago, Anchor Steam was an extreme beer."
It's not hard now to walk into a store and find a quadruple Belgian or oak-aged imperial stout. What once was exotic in its rareness is now becoming exotic and yet accessible.
Some breweries have their rare beers that don't get sold with the rest. (If somebody finds Deschutes' sour brown The Dissident somewhere in the Denver area, I beg you to write me.) Other breweries are dedicated only to exotic beers.
That's the theory under which Jeffries founded Jolly Pumpkin in 2004. A man who used to brew a different wheat beer to be enjoyed with each pizza that was served at a pub where he used to work, he decided to be the first U.S. brewery to age 100 percent of its products in oak.
Its beers (available at a select number of Colorado liquor stores), like the tenderly spicy Fuego del Otono, don't shock the palate as much as they demand you to think about their complexity. And where there was nothing five years ago, there is now a determination to try what hasn't been tried. Jeffries admitted that he wakes up every day thinking of a new beer style.
So where does this trend, this experimentation, end? Talking to Jeffries, to Cilurzo, to Calagione, it doesn't.
"I don't think there's a lot off the top of my head I wouldn't consider," Jeffries said.
And remember, this is coming not from a Belgian, but from a guy who lives in Michigan.
Labels: Dogfish Head, Exotic beers, Jolly Pumpkin, Russian River
Friday, October 10, 2008
Notes from Day One of the GABF
First, I'll just say that it's great to be in this time of year again. I think that's something upon which we all can agree. But on to beer talk . . .
*The buzz of the festival once again seems to center around the many great sours out there. Smaller and smaller breweries are bringing their versions, and there are more framboisens and Flemish browns on the floor than I can remember.
There was a long line of people waiting to try Vinnie Cilurzo's new creation, Consecration, at Russian River, and it was well worth the wait. Aged six months in a Cabernet barrel and brewed with 33 pounds of currants in each barrel, it is tart and dark and a worthy competitor to his Supplication for the best sour of the festival.
That said, the beer that my group of friends and I couldn't stop raving about was the Cerise Cassee from tiny Cambridge Brewing Company of Massachusetts. It's a barrel-fermented wild sour ale that absolutely blows your taste buds off.
*As mentioned before, the lines were long from the get-go at New Glarus, Russian River and the Lost Abbey. For some reason, there was little gathering around Stone Brewing. And yet the southern California brewery brought its best lineup in years. The 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Ale is sweetly hopped and flows easier than a beer that strong should, the Ruination IPA is its fantastic self and the 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout is a thick, dark piece of work that mellows nicely after a couple of sips. Anyone skipping this booth is doing so at their own peril.
*Finally, I have to thank last night's Fearless Tasting Crew for their walking me through Texas breweries that they used to haunt. Some of them were forgettable, but tucked in the back of the convention hall is a gem of a beer called Real Ale Real Heavy. A 9.7 percent Scottish ale, this is deep and rich and somewhat sweet and is an all-around taste-bud-kicking experience.
First, I'll just say that it's great to be in this time of year again. I think that's something upon which we all can agree. But on to beer talk . . .
*The buzz of the festival once again seems to center around the many great sours out there. Smaller and smaller breweries are bringing their versions, and there are more framboisens and Flemish browns on the floor than I can remember.
There was a long line of people waiting to try Vinnie Cilurzo's new creation, Consecration, at Russian River, and it was well worth the wait. Aged six months in a Cabernet barrel and brewed with 33 pounds of currants in each barrel, it is tart and dark and a worthy competitor to his Supplication for the best sour of the festival.
That said, the beer that my group of friends and I couldn't stop raving about was the Cerise Cassee from tiny Cambridge Brewing Company of Massachusetts. It's a barrel-fermented wild sour ale that absolutely blows your taste buds off.
*As mentioned before, the lines were long from the get-go at New Glarus, Russian River and the Lost Abbey. For some reason, there was little gathering around Stone Brewing. And yet the southern California brewery brought its best lineup in years. The 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Ale is sweetly hopped and flows easier than a beer that strong should, the Ruination IPA is its fantastic self and the 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout is a thick, dark piece of work that mellows nicely after a couple of sips. Anyone skipping this booth is doing so at their own peril.
*Finally, I have to thank last night's Fearless Tasting Crew for their walking me through Texas breweries that they used to haunt. Some of them were forgettable, but tucked in the back of the convention hall is a gem of a beer called Real Ale Real Heavy. A 9.7 percent Scottish ale, this is deep and rich and somewhat sweet and is an all-around taste-bud-kicking experience.
Labels: Cambridge Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Real Ale, Russian River, Stone Brewing
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Russian River Love, Part II
This is a bit of an aside, but I want to mention how glad I am that the DNC is out of town. That's not a political statement in any way. It's just that over the past week, I was too tired when I got home several times to even have a beer, regardless write about it. I'm barely recovered now. And it's time to drink again.
So, I want to get back to explaining a little bit about Russian River for anyone who may not have been able to enjoy it yet. (And if that's you, go get some as soon as you're done reading this.) The Santa Rosa, Calif. brewery is the brainchild of Vinnie Cilurzo, and it's been available only in California and at major brew festivals for about a decade-and-a-half. But Vinnie and his wife Natalie just opened a newer, larger brewery location recently, and hence, they have more motivation to up those sales across the country.
As with most great small breweries, the three beers that you will be able to get here in Colorado are not Russian River's absolute best. The difference between Russian River and most breweries who first cross a timeline, however, is that these beers are still really @#$&in' good. Pliny the Elder is a bold double IPA with a flower-burst smell and a surprisingly smooth flow to it. Damnation, which puts Belgian yeast into a smooth golden ale, is full of ester but not overbearing or overly alcoholic (assuming that you, like me, don't consider 7 percent overly alcoholic). And the Blind Pig IPA may be the mildest offering of the bunch - just remember, I called the IPA the mildest offering of the bunch - and is more drinkable than most IPAs.
What you won't be getting yet - but what you should be running to get at the Great American Beer Festival in October - is Supplication, which, in my opinion, is the best beer in America. A shockingly tart up-front punch (I swear this could jerk someone out of a coma) is followed by the backtaste of a strong brown ale. The most common reaction I hear - including from some pretty astute beer aficionados at my table at the recent tasting dinner - is that this doesn't taste like beer. I don't fully disagree. But this sour brown ale - aged in pinot noir barrels with sour cherries - is more complex and eye-opening that anything else that calls itself beer.
Russian's other jewels, still stuck in California, include: Happy Hops, a surprisingly bitter blonde ale brewed with hops; Salvation, a dark, bitter Belgian that challenges you to define it by its style; and Temptation, a golden ale aged 12 to 18 months in French oak chardonnay barrels that is slightly sour but more approachable than the Supplication.
That's all I have to say. Now go get some. And if you're not 100 percent satisfied, call me and I'll come over and finish the bottles for you.
This is a bit of an aside, but I want to mention how glad I am that the DNC is out of town. That's not a political statement in any way. It's just that over the past week, I was too tired when I got home several times to even have a beer, regardless write about it. I'm barely recovered now. And it's time to drink again.
So, I want to get back to explaining a little bit about Russian River for anyone who may not have been able to enjoy it yet. (And if that's you, go get some as soon as you're done reading this.) The Santa Rosa, Calif. brewery is the brainchild of Vinnie Cilurzo, and it's been available only in California and at major brew festivals for about a decade-and-a-half. But Vinnie and his wife Natalie just opened a newer, larger brewery location recently, and hence, they have more motivation to up those sales across the country.
As with most great small breweries, the three beers that you will be able to get here in Colorado are not Russian River's absolute best. The difference between Russian River and most breweries who first cross a timeline, however, is that these beers are still really @#$&in' good. Pliny the Elder is a bold double IPA with a flower-burst smell and a surprisingly smooth flow to it. Damnation, which puts Belgian yeast into a smooth golden ale, is full of ester but not overbearing or overly alcoholic (assuming that you, like me, don't consider 7 percent overly alcoholic). And the Blind Pig IPA may be the mildest offering of the bunch - just remember, I called the IPA the mildest offering of the bunch - and is more drinkable than most IPAs.
What you won't be getting yet - but what you should be running to get at the Great American Beer Festival in October - is Supplication, which, in my opinion, is the best beer in America. A shockingly tart up-front punch (I swear this could jerk someone out of a coma) is followed by the backtaste of a strong brown ale. The most common reaction I hear - including from some pretty astute beer aficionados at my table at the recent tasting dinner - is that this doesn't taste like beer. I don't fully disagree. But this sour brown ale - aged in pinot noir barrels with sour cherries - is more complex and eye-opening that anything else that calls itself beer.
Russian's other jewels, still stuck in California, include: Happy Hops, a surprisingly bitter blonde ale brewed with hops; Salvation, a dark, bitter Belgian that challenges you to define it by its style; and Temptation, a golden ale aged 12 to 18 months in French oak chardonnay barrels that is slightly sour but more approachable than the Supplication.
That's all I have to say. Now go get some. And if you're not 100 percent satisfied, call me and I'll come over and finish the bottles for you.
Labels: IPA, Russian River, sour Belgian, Supplication
