Russian River Compunction

VERY lactic nose with slight touch of diacetyl. Grape and white fruit notes have a hard time competing with the extreme acidity. Dry and lactic finish.

Sampled during the First Annual Stone Sour Fest. Golden color with a nice head. Aromas and flavors were very grape-like and rather acidic. Another great sour beer from RR

Sampled at Stone’s Sour Festival, July 2007. Pour a light yellow with foamy hihte head. funky aroma of overripe mellon and general sourness. well balanced flavor with fruity sweetness and a great sourness..

Draft-3rd brew of Stone 1st Annual Sour Festival, July 22nd 2007. Shared this cool day very mellow day with bikesandbeer, wetherel, westsidethreat, padrefan, fordest, denverlogan and many others. Pours Yewllow gold with a 1 finger bright white head. Nose is sour, woody and very funky. The taste is vinous with a big sour punch, and also nicely balanced and sweet. This was really pretty damn awesome, probably second favorite of the day.

Sampled on tap at the First Annual Stone Sour Fest, July 2007
This beer has a hazy, copper-gold tint to it and it is topped by a wispy, barely there, white head. Green fruit aromatics greet my nostrils as I take my first draught of the aroma; I get flavors of star fruit, not-quite ripe honeydew or perhaps it is a not-ripe cantaloupe aroma. The plum notes become quite noticeable as I dig around in the nose. Actually the fruit character really starts to open up after a little bit; Pluots indeed. I can’t seem to shake a sharp, green note here though; perhaps it is contributed by the sour bugs. At times I actually get some notes reminiscent of sweet cherry skins; it is fleeting, but when noticed adds a really nice note to the aroma.

Upfront this beer tastes crisp, tart and dry; it really hits that quaffable character that I like in sour beer. There is a noticeable green fruit note here as well as a touch of vegetal character in the background. The dominant note is a tartness, but I really think (at least it seems so) that the pluots contribute a roundness & extra complexity to the sour notes that are in this beer. As I expected, the fruit character is much more apparent in the nose (which is typical of softer fruits like apricots, peaches and plums). When my palate gets used to the initial flavors, I am able to pick out notes of sourdough (a mix of the funk and some malt notes) at times as well as a grassy grain flavor. Lactic acid is the most apparent acidic quality here, but like I said, there is a persistent, fruity acidity here that is really quite nice.

While the beer is light, it is not austere or bony, there is some body here, which seams wrapped up in the fruit presence / contribution. This is quite complex, though it is not necessarily on the surface and you do have to work at it. I find that I am starting to take Vinnie’s artistry for granted; this beer is so well integrated, so well made. I almost don’t think about it, b/c despite this being perhaps the most balanced, multi-layered, eminently crafted beer at the festival, I almost felt like it was overlooked.

Sampled at the First Annual Stone Sour Fest. Pretty decent flavors of sour cherries. My favorite of the day.

I’ve had this at the Toronado and the Stone Sour fest on tap. Golden, small head, funky fruit aroma. Lemony, some sweetness, refreshing in its tartness, slight oak and chardonay notes. Funky but lovely; one of my favorites from RR.

Tried on tap at Stone brewery. A great beer, but looks like p. Nice sour nose of lemon, orange? Reminds me exactly of the smell of eating sour cherries at my grandmothers house in Maryland. Exactly. Pale yellow color. Mellow mild flavor. What aspecial treat. First rating: 9,2,9,3,18:4.1. Second taste at sour fest: 7,2.5,7.5,3,16.5:3.7. Third taste by patanap: 4.6