Jolly Pumpkin La Roja Grand Reserve

ON tap at Stone. Cloudy caramel color with no head. Sour aroma with good oaky motes and a caramel sweetness. Initial sourness transitioning to an oaky taste of caramel and vanilla with a semi-dry finish.

I forget who sent me this...thanks. Pours with more foam than expected. A beautiful beer, woody looking red at the bottom, fading up into a mury light brown with a hint of red. Aroma of rich, spiced caramel. Boozy ripe fruits and oak add nicely. Slghtly less than moderately sour flavor, muddled fruits and some spice. Vanilla and oak show themselves at the finish. Moderately carbonated with a full body. I could drink five more.

Bottle from Styles. Pour was beautiful for an aged brew, nice off-white head over a fully amber body with some deeper reddish hues. Aroma was bretty funk, citrus, caramel, tart fruits. The flavor followed, everything coming together wonderfully from the aroma along with spicey oaky (cedar even) barrel elements, tart apples, and vanilla. This is up there with some of my highly liked Russian River products, and I’m incredibly glad to have had the opportunity on this one. Thanks, Chris, a generous bottle to have sent me!

Thanks to drewbeerme for the bottle. I’m in love with this beer--and I need more! The aroma was a nice mixture of sweet malts, a touch of sour, banana, marshmallow and a light oak scent. Murky reddish brown in color witha decent head that created nice lacing. The palate is full for the style and leads to a wonderfully balanced set of tastes. First a light sour flavor tickles the tongue and opens up your tastebuds for the flow of caramel malts that are behind it. Throughout all of this you get hints of apple, oak, and a very, very faint tinge of bourbon. Wonderfully complex and easy to drink at the same time.

Hazy scarlet-rose in color with little movement detected in my Goose Island reserve glass (seemed fitting.) Some scattered white particle dust for the head. Displays a nose for complexity. Neglected walnut shells sitting in a shallow puddle of whiskey & rye. Gentle aromatic massage of packing boxes, prunes, nutmeg, cattails and coriander. Flavor confirms that this beer was forged in heaven, taking the standard La Roja recipe to perpetual bliss. Souring compounds come calling early and often, levitating flavor dimensions of tart black cherry squish and peppered and aged cranberries.

Farmhouse fashion is elegantly embodied by brett and an earthen grain tradition. Caramel and toffee slowly decomposing over hay feed. Bourbon barrel accentuations serve a supporting role, with the corresponding nuances evolving the flavor complexity to resemble rye. Some tannic resins and wine cask qualities when it’s all said and done. Celebrates the multiple dimensions of palate intricacy. Slick, streamy slide that channels straight through the mouth. Barrel aging has subdued the effervescence, but there’s some distant natural carbonation that’s still hanging around and interjecting its own genius contributions. Finish brings us full circle with whiskey and rye, warming the mouth feel as a pumpernickel-sourdough mix fills in the rest of the faculties. Not a bourbon knock-out - just another fantastic creation that has few to call its peers. Thanks so much for the bottle, Styles!