Beer: Russian River Pliny the Elder
Brewery Location: Santa Rosa, CA
Beer Style: DIPA
ABV: 8.0%
I've had a pretty good few days. We had a tremendous party at the Brugge Brasserie for the Hoosier Beer Geeks 2nd anniversary party, things are good at home, and I've finally gotten to try my own bottle of Pliny the Elder. The downside to everything is that my refrigerator went out on Friday morning, and I had to wait until today to drink this beer. I didn't want to buy a new fridge, but once your compressor goes out and needs to be replaced and then they tack on labor it just doesn't pay to have something fixed these days.
A huge thank you to my friend Nate for bringing me back a bottle of this beer from his recent trip to California. It is really nice to have friends that know good beer and bring stuff like this back for you. Russian River just started their new bottling line for Pliny, and this doesn't get much fresher than this bottle unless it would have been from the tap.
This beer pours a very hazy orange color with a decent sized solid white head. The head died down a bit, but it left patchy lacing on my tulip glass. The nose on this beer is very fresh and vibrant. The citrus scent is the most dominant with plenty of earthiness and pine scents nipping at the heels of the citrus scent, but no malt to really speak of in the nose. The flavor profile starts out with loads of hop bitterness leaning towards pine bitterness with the citrus fruit and tropical fruits flavors really coming in about mid-drink. The flavors are very pronounced, but they do not overpower you in anyway, but rather combine for a very pleasant flavor profile. The initial rush of hop bitterness if huge, but somehow the finish is soft and clean. I am very surprised as well at how low the malt flavor is, but still supports the hops brilliantly. The drinkability is really amazing for a DIPA with the alcohol well hidden, and I would have gladly had another bottle of this beer.
I wish I had another bottle of this beer for another go around. This was indeed one of the better DIPA's I've encountered, but I need to have a few more to know where to place this beer on my top DIPA list. Either way I really enjoyed this beer a great deal, and hopefully can land some more of it the future. Thanks again Nate.
Cheers!
Matt
1 comment:
Russian River is a brewery whose offerings we see too few of out this way. Temptation was my first foray into their wild yeast world, and I've been wanting to revisit it for quite some time. Damnation was also a tasty treat, but I'll have to do some searching in order to taste one of the Plinys.
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