Russian River Supplication

Brewed by Russian River Brewing
Style: Sour Ale
Santa Rosa, California USA

Pours cloudy brown/orange. Aroma is musty, with wood, and fruit. Flavor is sour cherries, oak, and a little vanilla. Nice body, and a relatively long, sourish finish. thanks to dirty martini for this one.

Bottle at RBESG Grand Tasting 05. Hazy light amber, with a ring of head. Sharp, tart aroma - cherries and lemons. Very good sour ale - fruit in the initial taste, tartness to finish, just short of mouth puckering. Good balance of sweet and sour. Excellent.

Hazed, tawny, deep amber/orange, under a fizzy slab of off-whitish foam... Oooo...sow-wer aroma, wild and funky, citrus and spice at play in the great outdoors...oooo...aaahhh! A most unusual taste. Full bodied, and utterly weird. Bold fruit, forward and beautifully blended. Cherries are on top, but don’t dominate, there’s a greater complexity, made more confounding by the tartness that abounds. Gets mellower as we sip, and wider, too...more open, spacious, ...with incessant bursts of cherry-licious flavor...me, oh, my... This beer requires a larger bottle, and a momentous occasion, to share with special someones...drinks down deliciously... A most stupendous creation.

Muddy amber-orange. Surprisingly buttery nose takes a minute to get accustomed to. Good oaky, cherry, dusty and woody flavours underneath, but the diacetyl is a wall you have to filter your way through. Spicy pineapple juice soaked in oak casks, nutty and lactic flavours.. Once again a territory owned by rancid butter, but the lactic aspects are gentle. Popcorn reminiscent finish in its burnt buttery feel. Nice thin bubbled carbonation, lightly oily medium body. Alright, it seems like we were unlucky and I’m excited enough about Russian River to re-sample that again for sure, at GABF in the worst case, but may this rating serve as a warming. This was a batch #1 bottle and I can only push the lucky souls holding onto bottles of this to be very patient and let it ferment well because it seems the bottles are still quite variable. 6-3-5-3-11 = 2.8

I finally got to try this on tap at BCTC 2005 and there was no diacetyl component at all which left us with beautiful vinous, nutty sweet and sour flavors of cherries, vanilla and a miraculous drying finish. Generous earthiness with a funky soily apple skin yeastiness. This goes from a 2.8 to a 4.1 in my book and is a piece of art.

07.16.05 Tap sample at BCTC. Dark honey amber, light haze. Bretty and very sweet nose. Buttery with some cherry. Holy cow complex aroma. Supple body, light eff, vinous and very woody/dry to finish. Astringency cleans up sweetness. Excellent stuff.

GABF 2005
Aroma: yeast, little funk, some sourness, some light fruit
Appearance: murky yellow, white head, lacing
Flavor: mint, fruit, yeast, and flowers
Palate: smooth with some sourness, nicely balanced

Thanks mj! batch 002. Pours a nice clean red with a thin fizzy red head. The aroma is tart, acidic, acetic, cherry, spice, vinous, grapes. very nice complex nose and flavor, spicy in the mouth, very tart and acidic, cherry. Lovely barrel aged beer. Wonderful mouthfeel. Love to try this again.

On tap at Falling Rock Denver. Pours out a cloudy brown topped with a small head. Aroma was sweet candy, light berry notes, plenty of the funk and some wood. Taste more of the funk, tart, sweet cherries, some oak, and a little spice. Very nice.