Russian River Pliny the Elder

Brewed by Russian River Brewing
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Santa Rosa, California USA

A crisp, clean, and incredibly refreshing IIPA, this is mind-blowingly aromatic and delicious. Beautiful citrus hops make a wonderful fresh pine forest and juniper aroma. Tastes of hops, pine and juniper. Incredible lacing. Shared with Hobbersr and courtesy of savvy1982, thanks for sharing this second bottle with me.

Location: 500 ml bottle via trade with NickD717, 9/8/09
I have been looking forward to this one since it arrived in the mail, and it lived up to the expectations.

Aroma: Wonderful aroma of citrus hops, peach, pine hops, hops, some mild caramel thanks to the nose, right off the bat I can tell this beer is going to be wonderful.
Appearance: Pours a nice hazy bright orange color, with a wispy white head, and retains some nice, almost uniform, spotty lace on the glass.
Flavor: I thought that nose would be hard to live up to, well it does, great hoppy flavor, some nice peach, pine, and just a little caramel/bread malts for "balance."
Palate: Really nice palate as well, smooth and easy to drink. Giving this a 5 over a 4 purely because of the absurd drinkability, I could drink this constantly.
Overall Impression: I’m jealous of everyone who gets to drink this stuff regularly, I kind of want to move to the West Coast just so I can drink more Pliny! I can’t even imagine how good the Younger must be. Seriously Nick, you are one lucky bastard for living so close to these guys, color me jealous! I could probably rant about this beer for hours, and I can see why people call Russian River the best IPA brewery (after having only this and Blind Pig, I might be inclined to agree). Wow, I have certainly found a new beer to add to my favorite list, that is for sure. Here’s the ultimate compliment: my glass is almost empty, and it is actually making me sad that I can’t just pop another one of these. I look forward to seeing "Ben has a new Top 10 beer..." next to my rating for the next few days, with regards to this beer.

Pours a cloudy gold. Aroma is of citrus hops. Flavor matches the aroma with some malts. Very smooth and not overpowering. I like this one.

Pours an amber color with a white head. Nice citrus and pine hop aroma with some caramel, and some fruits. Flavor has plenty of hops to it but is balanced well with the caramel malts. Nice bitter finish that lingers with almost no alcohol warming.

Cloudy dark gold, thin white head. Complex aroma and palate, with oranges, cherries and melons accompanied by pine and oily hops. Solid body with hoppy finish. One of the best, high-ABV IPAs out there!

( 500ml bottled on 8/19/09 thanks to mar) pours golden with fluffy/oily head that sticks around and tons of lacing. Nose is citrus hops like pineapple and bitter orange. Taste is so delicious. Creamy, oily, great match between the sweetness and hops, some citrus oily hops, and sweet malts. DIPAs do not get much better than this. Complex in both nose and smell I think the freshness of only 15 days old helped this one.

I just don’t see it. 51F from the bottle, and a bit bland to be honest. Not a bad beer, but nothing to write home about either.

Finally stumbled across the Russian River Company in Santa Rosa to try what I had only thought was urban legend. Everything as I had been told in perfect balance. Wonderful aroma, smooth not overly bitter flavors. After trying a very nice Blind Pig had to go back to the Elder as who knows when I will have the next opportunity.