Russian River Supplication

I made a mistake. Pantanap hooked me up with a bottle of this beer in one trade, so I cancelled a bottle of it I had going on in another trade. Pours a caramel brown pour with a small white head. Nose is full of sour and sweet notes, a bit of funk, apple cider, cherry and other light fruits. maybe a little pear. Flavor-wise it was obviously sour, but a delicous not over the top sour. Apples and pear and cherry a bit of barnyard precense. Notes of wood, oak it seems. Hints of lemon, grass, leather, oh and a bit of sourness. Honestly the best beer I have consumed in a long time, maybe ever. Give me a case. At first I thought, fantastic beer.....4.5 maybe a little higher. But as I sat here and took down a whole bottle it quickly and continuously kept getting better and better. I went into this beer with very mediocre expectations.

This beer is, in a word, divine. If you believe sour is at the top of the beer-flavor hierarchy, as I do, than this beer is for you. If you don’t believe this, well chances are this beer is still for you. It offers a rich amber color, abundant head, delicious aroma, and even better taste. Aroma is citrus-y, sour, candy-sweet, yet somehow (despite what I’ve already said) balanced and distinctly beer-like. Flavor is distinctly sour, although I’ve certainly had beers sourer. It has a musty, sweet-tart, clove, complex and delicious. Mouthfeel is excellent. This is not a beer that is not easy for most of us to get our hands on. However, if you’ve not had it, you should travel, trade, or attend a festival to get it.

Rerate 3/16/08 - I’m raising my score to this to a perfect 5, the only one I’ve given so far.....if I could only drink one beer until the end of time, this would be it. It’s so good....once it hits your lips. This is crack in beer form, seriously. I think I could drink this for eternity. Tar cherries, some bretty action, acidic. Light head that quickly dissipates, leading way for the crack binge to begin. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

One of the top five beers I ever tasted. Complex, but not cloying. The finish seems to go on forever. I get the brown ale, the pinot noir infused cask, the sour cherries, the pineapple scented brett...this is amazing beer. A great food beer - maybe fresh fruit and shrimp kabobs on the grill basted in this beer. Better yet, the cook should be basted in this beer.

I hope nobody minds this placeholder rating for the purposes of the DD Top Ten list. l’ve got a real rating somewhere, and l’ll enter it one of these days, but for now l hope it’s enough to say that this is one of my very favorite beers ever. Batch 001 and its Pinot-focused bliss, of course. Batches 002 and 003, while good beers, mostly just make me sad.