
Melissa found Foothill Regional Park, right by the town of Santa Rosa where the brewery is located. We drove over to Sonoma County to the park, and while it was raining intermittently, it was a nice hike. Climbing up into the rolling hills and landscape of the north bay we quickly left highway 101 behind us and were soon peeking over hilltops towards free range cattle, forests, and rolling hills of vineyards. The landscaped was decorated with young, gnarled oak and the occasional madrone and manzanita tree. In the rain, the green of new winter grass

So why the Russian-River Brewery?
Some of you may have seen an earlier post about my experience at the Davis Food Co-op a couple of weeks ago when I asked an employee about the empty row of Pliny the
Pliny the Elder is a double IPA, and a pretty damn

The other cool thing about this brewery is, besides making the hot Plinys, they also do some really interesting brews featuring fermentation in old wine barrels to give the brews a whole new flavor. Unfortunately the one I really wanted to try, Beatification was not currently available. That brew features no added yeast whatsoever. Instead it is uses only the wild mix of yeasts from the air (akin to sourdough) and is aged in old oak barrels that no longer contribute oak or wine flavor but rather have their own unique mix of yeasts. We'll be going back to try that another time.
The brews we did try consisted of:
Russian River Porter (41 BU's, Bitterness Unit)- Not bad but not great, smooth like on nitro but it wasn't and seemed a bit flat.
Happy Hops (32 BU's)- a "hoppy pale ale", but really not that hoppy. Like a traditional english pale ale.

Blind Pig IPA (72 BU's)- this is more like it. Lots of that pine flavor but not killer hops. If IPAs are a bit too hoppy for you sometimes, this has a flavor like the Elder (95-100 BU's) but not as much bitterness.
Concesecration (10% ABV, 17 BU's) - This was a cool one. A dark sour ale fermented in Cab Sauvignon barrels. I liked this one but Melissa and Reg favored the other.
Supplication (7% ABV, 27 BU's) -
The ladies liked this one. A dark ale aged in French oak Pinot Noir barrels with three strains of yeast and sour cherries. Pretty cool to try these out. In the end though, as you can see in the picture posted above. We came home with a growler of Pliny the Elder.
A New Foster Dog...
Also, this evening after returning from the hike we picked up a new foster dog. The SPCA just got her today, and we having been looking forward to taking another foster. She is a very sweet, small, cuddler, but unfortunately has very matted hair which makes he shy away in pain when you pet her on the head. She is going to the groomer Monday and I don't think she will be around long based on her very sweet temperment.
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