Russian River Pliny the Elder
My first ever bottle of Pliny the Elder. This is a year round offering from Russian River. It came in a 500mL bottle allowing me to use an imperial pint glass and not feel cheated. I’ve been wanting to try this DIPA for quite a while. Thanks to Jason and Jeremy for picking me up a bottle while they were in Denver at GABF. Now if I could have just convinced them to blog GABF I would have been happy. Maybe next year…
Pliny pours golden yellow with a thick, firm head that has some retention. The head also leaves lots of lacing on the glass. Lots of citrusy sweetness on the nose, and bitter pine in the mouth. While bitter, the beer doesn’t have a heavy or overly bitter finish, and is quite drinkable. The finish actually reminds me of peeling and eating a fresh grapefruit.
It is 8% ABV so I don’t know how many I would want in a row, but it is really tasty. And actually, that 8% is hidden well, so I could see this beer sneaking up on me (like Jamie’s Centennial IPA). I will definitely have this one again. Maybe someday we’ll be able to get Russian River here in Columbia, but I don’t expect it anytime soon. Outside of California, Russian River only distributes to Oregon, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.
October 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Thanks Scott, my Centennial IPA does tend to sneak up on a few unsuspecting drinkers and seems to be a hit with those that have tasted it to date. Pliny the Elder is one of my favorite RR selections (along with their standard RR IPA - never cared much for the Blind Pig), too bad it’s not available in MO. Never had a chance to try ‘the younger’ but will have to some day because I hear it puts ‘the elder’ to shame.