Russian River Supplication

batch 002. Deep red beer with a sweet fresh cherry aroma, lovely fruit skin tannins and a bit of brettanomyces funkinss. Lots of tart acetic/lactic character as well. Soft sourness with a very well-integrated oakiness. Vanilla character behind the fruit and sweetness. Warming brings up a soft oaky earthiness with a light musky scent. Flavour is also amazing, sweet cherry, oak, vanilla and a soft lacto/pedio chewy acidity. Dank and dark with a heavy earthy vineousness throughout. Funk and barnyard wrapped in a blanket of cherries and woody tannins. Words don’t really do this one justice... this is wild ale at its best.

June 2007. Batch 002. Impenetrable pour, rusty red in color. A thin layer of foam stays the course. Nose of pears, cherries, old leather, some honey. Rose blossoms and almonds. Cayenne pepper and Italian dressing are first on the tongue; taut and precise. Powerfully tart cherries, white grapes, vinous oaky notes, lactic acid. Many shades of pepper, finishing on a brilliant, firey kick. A bretty lemon juice pulse, with a salty flourish of attic-kept cured meats. The wild character of the yeast is flawlessly integrated, gnawing at the rinds of the sweet cherries with the right rub of sawdust bite. Wrought fully with strange intrigue. An unpolished diamond, and rightly so. Thanks Keith! 9/4/9/4/19 4.5

July 2008. Batch 003. Pours a bloody gold. Aroma is tangy and tart with a soft sweetness of wildflower honey and feathery rose essence laying as a blanket over sour cherries, musty pinot wood, and white and black pepper. The soft nuttiness of its sweetness gives it an angel food-pistachio creme cake feeling. Yeast is cooling, gravelly and rustic.

Flavor hasn’t yet settled into the biting crunch of apple cider vinegar that I remember. It’s more a soft champagne vinegar and caramelized pear concoction, erudite and relaxed, and smartly balanced between sweet and tart; at this point of youth it really strikes a calm and comforting pose balancing sharp cherry tartness, leathery wild yeasts, and the soft sunny sweetness of jammy pinot flavors.

Yeast poured. The gravelly character that keeps recurring is so musty and dry that it recalls the sharp edge of a dry white cheese aged in basement cobwebs. White pepper spice lends a searing quality reminiscent of a gorgeous gueuze. And this opens up in the aroma as well.

Medium palate is sprightly with carbonation and highly acidic. Youth shows again in the finish, which is gorgeously soft and only lightly leathery, with a pomegranate aril and lemon juice flavor eventually yielding that punchy cheesiness that showed up mid-palate. I love how this is dominantly quiet and calm in semisweet tartness, while also offering a glimmer of visceral lambic-like sour violence throughout. The rustic and refined happily together. Thanks Steve! 9/4/9/5/19 4.6

350 mL bottle. Reddish orange with light tan fizzy head. Aroma of sour fruit and oak. Very bright palate. Taste of sour cherries and oak with an exceptionally crisp and dry finish and a lingering sourness. Quite good.

This was one very different brew for me. I’ve never had anything like it. Poured amber with tan head. Aroma of fruit, mostly cherries. Taste was extremely sour, mostly cherries.

Pours a dark orange bronze color with a medium frosty beige head. Aroma of rotting wood, sour apples and cherries. Taste is sweet and sour with a strong tarty feel. Cherries, apples and a bit of oak are in the flavor. Not bad, but was expecting a bit more.

This was tatsy and makes me want beautification really really badly. Brown coloured beer with a foamy off white head. Aroma has some of those sour cherries in it. Great flavour with lots of tart brett, some sweet and sour from the cherries, and some wine like hints (though I could be imagining it).

Batch 002 Bottle. Foam gushed from the bottle upon upening, but poured a nice clear copper-brown. Aroma is sour cherries, apples, wood. Flavor is absolutely fantastic! Wine, oak, sour, brettanomyces. This is really really nice!

Bottle - poured a murky ruby with a slick of foam. Aroma dominated by sour fruits and slightly musty but no funk. The flavor is immediately sour with a pronounced cherry tartness that gives way to light flavors of oak/vanilla, yeasty spice & brett vinous notes.