BoozeReviews.net

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Once a year Russian River releases a beer that is now so famous that El Guapo himself may elevate this to the category of in-famous. Beer heathens from all over the U.S. and abroad travel great lengths for the chance to taste and fill growlers of Pliny the Younger, a triple IPA that packs a serious wallop at 10% plus and “gobs” of IBU’s. What took a week last year to finish off was gone in less than 8 hours. Insanity. This is one man’s point of view of the experience. All photos courtesy of Chad, aka cpferris on BeerAdvocate.

The day started as I arrived at the Travelodge Downtown Santa Rosa around 10:30 after flying into Oakland and renting a pretty spiffy little car for the drive up. The Travelodge is a good place to puke and pass out, but certainly the holes in the walls, piss-stained carpet and the fact that they were doing construction throughout the day trying to keep this hotel from falling down told me that I was certainly not in Kansas anymore. I wouldn’t be spending much time there anyway with all the good beer soon to come.

Walked to Russian River at 10:45 and met Jeff, ColonelForbin and Chad in the back parking lot. The line was already crazy to get in the front door, but when you meet up with the locals, there is no time for busy lines or shenanigans. We went in the back door with the employees to the side room that Vinnie had reserved for us. Took a look at the beer offerings for the day. Good stuff. Of course, we toted in a giant cooler of beer that Jeff had slowly been compiling over the course of the past couple of weeks; beer generously donated by other BeerAdvocate attendees. You may ask what kind of sick assholes bring rare, high abv brew to the Younger release? Well we certainly did. Here is a picture of the cooler.

Soon after, people came piling in through the doors and the bar filled up until people were sardines in a can, immovable objects lost amid a sea of drooling cretins waiting for a chance to savor the flavor of a pint or to fill up a maximum of 4 growlers. At 11:00 some people waited at the bar for over an hour to get a pint, and that was once they were inside. Those left outside, sadly looking in, waited up to three hours just to get in as the line wrapped up the block. Of course, for the sake of entertainment, I pressed my ball sack against the window and waved pint after pint of Younger at them to provoke their ire. Schadenfreude. Our room had bartenders rushing in and out bringing us tray after tray of Younger. After a while, they got so sick of us plowing through beer, that they started bringing pitchers of Younger. This is where things start to get a little hazy.

After my third pint of Younger, I thought it would be a good idea to dive into the cooler as most of the BA attendees had arrived and were on the verge of being unable to distinguish some of the more subtle nuances of the bottles that were in store. All of the members in the room were experienced drunks and it was great to finally put some names to faces and online pseudonyms. First up, Kuhnhenn Bourbon Barrel Barleywine vintage 2005. This was a bottle that was re-released after a keg was discovered at the brewery and it’s contents were then put into bottles and reconditioned. Amazing. The label got destroyed from the ice in the cooler. The labels looked like they were printed off someone’s home computer, so no big loss there.

Next we sampled more Younger, then it was on to a growler of Bells Bourbon Barrel Aged Double Cream Stout. Eyebrews (pictured with Jeff aka ipa247) on BA was turning 50 today and he graciously shipped out a ton of rare beer to celebrate the moment with friends. This particular beer was amazing and really well balanced for a big BA Stout. I had a few of the sample glasses and a couple good laughs with berkey and mjl21.

After this, I felt the need to pace myself, so I had a glass of water and a couple pieces of pizza. After not eating anything all day, the pizza was excellent. Something with vegetables on it if I vaguely remember correctly. To wash down the pizza, we thought it wise to open not one but two bottles of Barrel Aged Old Dipsea Barleywine. One was barreled in Heaven Hill barrels while the other in Old Fitzgerald Barrels. I preferred the Old Fitz, but both were tributes to the excellence that sometimes occurs when brewers stick a decent barleywine in a bourbon barrel. Good stuff. Next up was Canadian Breakfast Stout, another growler sent out from the bar “HopCat” by the BA eyebrews. Currently ranked in the top ten on BeerAdvocate, this Founders creation is a tough brew to get out here on the West Coast. Delicious stuff and really reminiscent of Founders Breakfast Stout with a little maple added to it. MMMMM.

By then it was time to get a little wild. Popped Ithaca’s new blueberry wild ale aptly named LeBleu. And it sure did! Gusher! This beer was way too carbonated, but still pretty tasty. Nothing like the vinegary funk of Cantillon’s Blabaer, but still fun. After that, Arbitrator cracked his bottle of “Dave,” followed by the Bruery’s Oude Tart and Cantillon’s 50 degrees North 40 degrees East. All were excellent, except Dave, which was just a bad joke gone really bad. More Younger, more Younger, more Younger. Then someone cracked a 1.5L Anchor Our Barrel Ale. A fucking fantastic old ale that is pretty hard to come by. At this point I was getting more than a little fired up for beer! As were others who had been there since 11:00 am.

By this time RR was a madhouse. Hundreds of beer junkies stoned out of their brains on Younger were breaking glasses, spilling on strangers, vomiting in the general vicinity of the toilet. Night of the living drunks. Scary beer zombies with a penchant for buggery and, of course, more Younger.

And I was proudly one of them. A few hours later the announcement. RR had run out of growlers. Chaos ensued. Pandemonium. Three hours later, Younger was gone. People still waiting in line cried. People that showed up Saturday cried harder. Vinnie escaped to the confines to a bunker at his home built specially for this occasion to keep from being strung up by the angry lynch mob that demanded more Younger! We were still in the room at this point opening bottles of Odonata’s Rorie’s Ale, Bourbon and Rye Papier, Midnight Sun’s Sloth, 07 BA Decadence, an infected Short’s Brew and others I can’t even remember, but must have been delicious.

What I do remember vaguely is trying to walk home. I can’t tell you what time it was, how I found my way back to the hotel in the dark while being unable to read street signs, or how I woke up the next morning with little to no hangover even after not eating anything all day but two pieces of pizza. I was ready for more. And yes, the Travelodge was still a dump. I headed over to Flavor where I had three Moonlight beers on tap: Reality Czeck, Toast, and Lunatic Lager. What a treat! These rival anything that Russian River does, albeit these are much lower, more sessionable abv beers. Just what the doctor ordered. I had a burger and fries to go with it. Good food and great beer! Met up with some other BA’s that told me about the other happenings from the night before. Tales of broken bottles, stolen growlers, missing money, and man on man love. Shortly after, I drove up a couple exits on the 101 to Bottle Barn and perused their selection. Eh. So-so. Nothing really notable that I can’t get back home. From there, went back to the hotel and boxed up some brews to ship out to people that I’ve been trading with for a couple years. Then on to UPS to ship. Back to Flavor for Dinner and another three Moonlight beers: Death and Taxes Amber Lager, Bombay by Boat IPA and Twist of Fate, an English bitter. I missed out on Young Pale Ale from Moonlight, a beer that I was hoping I’d find, but no luck there. I’ll live.

After dinner, back to Russian River for a nightcap of Benediction, Rejection, and more Supplication. Good shit. Talked with an Orange County Beechwood regular and a table of guys from Washington D.C. Stumbled back to the hotel again, woke up, checked out, and off to the airport for the hour plus drive to Oakland. Good thing I got the GPS for 10 extra bucks a day. Those freeways near the city are confusing. Managed to not get lost once with it.

Overall, I’m going to call this trip silly-stupid-fabulous. And only my liver would disagree.

Hopefully the crew can make this an annual event!

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I don’t care if the financial sector is crumbling or if the extreme religious fucks of the world are manufacturing their apocalyptic prophecy, in fact with a glass of the Bruery’s Black Tuesday in hand, I couldn’t care less. A bourbon barrel aged imperial stout with an astounding 19.5% abv., Black Tuesday is currently the most hyped beer in the beer geek realm.

After a rough pour, a beautiful chocolate brown head forms over a jet black body with a slightly brown twinge at the edge of the glass. I’d tell you about the lacing, but it’s so fucking pungent that I couldn’t stop swirling and smelling. Black Tuesday reeks of bourbon, charred oak, molasses, and dried dark fruits. Even with the glass 2 feet below, a bourbon soaked chocolate cake aroma can still be detected. Tuesday tastes like a vanilla bourbon truffle with a sprinkle of espresso. The coffee flavor comes out in the finish in what is otherwise dominated by bourbon, molasses and vanilla. The taste lingers for over a minute after each sip is gone; taste buds are saturated and nearly overwhelmed by the depth of flavor. Mouthfeel is thick and rich, but lightened by adequate carbonation. Considering the 19.5% abv, the drinkability is silly.

Black Tuesday is an amazing beer: the best imperial stout on the planet, bar none.

It’s no wonder that hundreds of people, including me, lined up hours before the release of this beer at the Bruery. The release price of $30 now looks like a bargain with bottles already selling for $100 on ebay. If you can get your hands on it, try it. But don’t be surprised if you’re asked to give up your youngest child in exchange.

That crash you heard wasn’t the stock market, it was me trying to drink a whole 750 ml of Black Tuesday by myself.

Official Boozereviews score: 100 points

(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Odonata Rorie's Ale

Goddamn, I drank far too much last weekend.  I mean, I had one of those weekends where, looking back now, I’m embarrassed.  I was a complete lazy drunken ass all fucking weekend long.

See, we went up to wine country.  Healdsburg, to be exact, and we stayed in a really nice house overlooking a lake.  ‘We’ being almost all the reviewers here on this obnoxious blog, we split the time evenly and divided our trip up into two kinds of days: beer days and wine days.  We had a lot of work to do there, so tasting typically began before breakfast.  Seeing that all of us see spitting wine (or beer) as alcohol abuse, I don’t think a single one of us made it past 9:00 on any given night.

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(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Another outlandishly good Pinot from Davis Family… I got 3 bottles 3 days ago and they’re already all gone.  Not gonna be too creative with this one because I’m already more than half-drunk…

…but, to put things in perspective, let’s use the following anecdote:  I uncorked and then immediately re-corked a bottle of an otherwise good Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot tonight– only because I’d had this Davis Pinot two nights running and the other (much more expensive) wine didn’t hold a candle to the Davis.  So I corked the SCM wine back up and opened a new (and my last) Davis Family bottle.

The mouth feel on this wine is… well… crap… this is going to sound kind of queer for a straight guy to say… the mouth feel is velvety.  In an effort to redeem myself I’ll get juvenile and say it’s velvety like a willing vagina.  Happy now?

The notes say it’s “food friendly”, but I’m going to counter that by saying it’s far too good to waste on food.  This one is a sipper– last night I held it on my tongue for a solid 30 seconds and it just kept on letting loose with damn near obscene goodness.  At 5 seconds it said “how ’bout some ripe cherries?”.  At 10 seconds it said “How ’bout some strawberries and cream?”.  At 20 seconds it said “Did I mention there was a pound of butter in the strawberries and cream?”.  At 30 seconds I was thinking about aged Guatemalan rum and a moist cuban cigar.  Not once did I taste astringency, harsh tannins or get a pucker in my sphincter (or palate).

I can’t believe that something this good is supposedly good for your heart.  God bless resveratrol and the winemakers that allow us to enjoy it in such a magnificent form.  While I’m at it, I think I’ll praise some other shit I love that’s good for you:  God bless blow jobs and surfing.

I’m giving this wine 120 points on my 100 point scale.  I’ve been drinking far too much Pinot lately, and this is the best of the recent lot.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Root |root|:
1.
verb, Australian origin; recreational procreation, with all the “pro”s and no “creation” (if things go as planned).
See Also: horizontal mambo, shag, beast with two backs.
Uses: “Rootin’ in the Back of the Ute” (Kevin Bloody Wilson.  Translated: “Fucking in the Back of the Truck”), or “Oy, youse wanna go ‘ave a root before the old lady gets home?”

2.
noun, Santa Cruz origin; Gabe Potkowski’s nickname.

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(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Had a long night last night at a bar that boasts 88 different kinds of tequila, which precipitated the following:

When you ask for the bar tab and it’s so long that the bartender has to roll it around a toilet paper roll, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When the bartender looks at the tab, does a double take and says “wow, you drank all that?”, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When the idea of fighting the bouncer looks like a fun challenge, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When some jackass on coke decides you’re his best friend and spends a half hour telling you how much money he makes, and you don’t knock him off his stool because you can’t tell which double-vision version of him to hit, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When you have to close one eye so you can see your wife on the stool next to you, you’ve been drinking to much tequila.

When you don’t notice she’s not your wife, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

If she ends up being a he, you’ve definitely been drinking too much tequila.

When your wife throws up in your office parking lot and you wash it away with your own piss and call it good, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

If you pissed on your boss’ tire in the process and washed that off with more piss, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When you wake up on your office couch and lock yourself out of the office while puking in the bathroom, forcing you to have to either sleep in the hall or walk 3 miles home, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When you don’t notice that the door’s not actually locked– you just can’t turn the knob — and still walk home, you’ve had too much tequila.

When the sidewalk repeatedly slaps you in the forehead on said walk home, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

When there’s a turd in your undies and you’re not sure whose it is, you’ve been drinking too much tequila.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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A friend of mine gave me this bottle of 76% Syrah, 21% Grenache and 3% Carignane a few months back, and I’ve been trying very hard not to drink it.  I figured, with 5 years of bottle age already, I’d give it another 2 or 3 and have myself one nice bottle of aged syrah.

Well, as typically happens when confronted with wine, my willpower gave out and now I’ve got my big sniffer buried balls-deep inside an incredibly rich glass of Santa Cruz grape juice.

I’ve always been a fan of Paul Draper’s wines.  I like his style.  Before native yeast fermentation was cool in California, Paul was doing it.  Ridge has also long adhered to sustainable farming practices, believing that the right thing for the environment is also the best thing for the wine.  Paul figured out, as the French did long ago, that if you care for your fruit in the vineyard, you don’t need to mess with it much in the winery. And, unlike me, Paul is eloquent and thoughtful about his passion, often speaking in terms not often heard in the corporate wine world.  If you haven’t seen it yet, check out From Ground to Glass, in which Paul is set in almost stark contrast to some of the more commercial wineries in the area.

From the label:

Forty inches of winter rain and a warm spring produced a good crop, despite further rain in May during set… Natural yeasts carried the wine to drynes; we pressed at seven days.  An uninoculated malolactic and twelve months in small cooperage followed… The dominant fruit is syrah, which provides structure.  Granache brings an exotic dimension to the fruit, and old vine carignane adds bright acidity and a touch of elegance.  A total of twenty-two months in air-dried American oak has brought the tannins and full body into balance, and five years of bottle age will bring further complexity to this fine wine.

It was that last part, written in July of 2004, that got me tonight:

five years of bottle age will bring further complexity to this fine wine

Some quick math on the world’s oldest calculator (my fingers) and I was ready to pull the trigger.

It pours a nice, deep, inky ruby, with just the slightest hint of amber around the edges.  The nose is of ripe dark fruit with just a breath of cedar and tobacco.  It smells well-aged and integrated, with not a singular component screaming out of the glass at you.

As a woman once said to me after head, it’s “a damn big mouthful” (sounded more like, “uth uh doom bug mufful”); and it comes with a similar viscosity too, coating the entire palate  with its goodness.  I’m getting plums and a touch of currant after smoking the first 2 pulls off of a moist robusto cigar.  At 13.8% ABV, it’s not a monster of a syrah; instead it’s a balanced, nuanced, perfectly ripe wine that would go well with food, despite the fact that I’m drinking it without.  The acid is there but mellowed, letting the true fruit flavors shine.  This is quite possibly the most complex and rewarding syrah I have ever tasted, and has me wishing I could speed up the clock and age the rest of my cellar to this perfection.

All in all, I’m giving this 02 Syrah a perfect score.  If you can still find any of this anywhere, buy it.  You’ll be glad you did.

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Being of Italian ancestry, I have what some women have politely referred to as a Roman Nose.  Also known as a big fucking bump-in-the-middle dog-style power sniffer.  And like my canine counterparts, I’m led to and fro not by my genitals (usually), but by that monolithic – nay , phallic -  “old factory” olfactory factory stuck to my face. Read more »

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Good beer from Mexico?  Yes, there really is such a thing.  Now I’m not talking about Tecate, Corona, Dos Equis, Bohemia, Negro Modelo, or any of the great summertime thirst quenchers.  I’m talking big, bold, highly flavored, brew straight out of B.C.. We’ll just call it “grandote” for now and leave it at that.

BJR tried to kill JDavid and me with this bottle by busting it out minutes before starting the long walk home. This certainly turned what would have been a slightly intoxicated walk into a downright stumble.  All I remember is that the sidewalk was playing tricks on me by moving back and forth while I was walking in a perfectly straight line.  Fucking sidewalk…
When we poured the beer, the color was reddish brown with little to no head. A bit undercarbonated, even for the style. When I stuck my big Jew nose in the glass there was caramel, alcohol, malt, and a bit of sweetness. Some leathery notes in the background.
Dark fruit and alcohol are the biggest players in the taste of this beer. Although there is a bit of a hop presence, the candied raisins, toffee, and brown sugar are present in the finish as well.
Mouthfeel is a bit stagnant; the carbonation could be pumped up a little in this bottle, which , coupled with mucho alcohol, make the drinkability almost nonexistent.

Great to see a great style of beer coming from our friends down south.  A good example of the style, and well done at that!  De puta madre!

Official BoozeReviews Score: 85/100

L’Chaim!

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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“It’s all very exciting. We have wood. Now you do too.” Huh, you might ask? But it’s true: I’ve never been so excited- to the point of getting wood- that another dude got wood! Palo Santo Marron is a brown ale brewed in 10,000 gallon Palo Santo wood vessels. That’s right, the off-centered folks at Dogfish Head went all the way down to Paraguay to get…wood! And I’m pretty god damn happy that they did.

The first time I tried this beer last year I wasn’t a big fan. But don’t fault the beer. You see, drinking a big, malty, high abv (12%) beer in 100 degree heat is a lot like getting head when you feel like having diarrhea. Whether you’re male or female, it’s hard to focus on pleasure when you’re worried about a butt pee eruption exploding in your lover’s face. I’m just not down with fecalphelia; But Palo Santo Marron when it’s cold out, yes I am.
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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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