Russian River Brewery

California isn't just about wine, and the first place I visited on my trip was Russian River Brewery, on the recommendation of @drinkaddition who rates it as one of the best American craft breweries there is. The impression he gave me, though, was of a small-scale microbrewery surrounded by upscale wineries, fighting for beer in the middle of wine country. Instead, what I found was a thriving brewpub in the Sonoma town of Santa Rosa; @winebizkid and I had to wait forty minutes to get a table and it was clear everyone was in the mood for beer and not wine. 

This reflects the status of craft beer in the US at the moment. When I visited Portland, Oregon, last September, the crowds at craft breweries and brewpubs were similar: packed with young and old, men and women, all happily exploring flights of beers of intense flavours and extreme styles. American craft brewing isn't just about IPAs, but porters and stouts, wheat beers and blondes, and full-on Belgian-style sours.

In fact, so successful has Russian River Brewery been, it has had to cut back on its availability: demand was too great for it to meet and now it doesn't supply outside of the area, probably explaining why so many are flocking to the brewpub itself. They make too many beers to mention here - we tasted 18 - so I'll just focus on the most representative styles. 

an afternoon's work

IPA

A style which developed in the nineteenth century to preserve beer for long periods of travel, IPA is a dry, hoppy, and sometimes maltier beer than a classic English bitter. An American IPA is even drier and hoppier, with lots of pine nut and grapefruit aromas, with spices coming from the American hops. The two IPAs we sampled were good examples of the American style. Blind Pig IPA (6.75%) was hoppy and very aromatic, with a tangy finish. Pliny the Elder (8%) is the brewery's most popular beer and takes the IPA style to an extreme. They call it a Double IPA, meaning more malt and hops, which gives the beer a very dry finish, with strong pine aromas, and not as fruity. This is a fantastic beer, but that bitter hoppiness is intense. 

My favourite beer, perhaps because it was so English, was the Row 2/Hill 56 (5.8%), made from Simcoe hops from Yakima, Washington (where most American hops are now grown). A pale ale, rather than an IPA, it had many of the characteristics of the above IPAs - grapefruit, pine nuts, a dry, dusty finish - but the hoppiness was more subdued and balanced, making it a great drinking beer. 

Porter/Stout

The difference between porter and stout is a difficult one to distinguish. Part of the confusion comes from the difficulty in defining porter: it's an historic term which has meant different things at different times. It can be brown to dark, hoppy, malty, or neither, medium or high alcohol. If it's black, roasty, and intense, then it may as well be a stout. Stout is more carefully defined - it's a strong black beer - but it's the Irish version that we all think of - made from roasted barley to avoid taxes on malt, making it creamier and more coffee like. 

The OVL Stout (4.5%) was more in this Irish style, with its toast, smoke, roast, and coffee aromas, but its low alcohol meant it was balanced and not too overpowering. Shadow of a Doubt (9.86%), an "Imperial Porter" ("imperial" referring to a higher alcohol beer exported for the Russian monarchy), had that roast coffee flavour, but because of the high alcohol was much sweeter, with caramel and toffee. 

Belgian Style

After my last trip to the US, I wrote about the increasing popularity of "sours" - stinky, funky beers made in a similar manner to lambics in Belgium - so it's no surprise that Russian River make excellent examples in a whole range of styles. The Little White Lie (5%) was a classic Witbier, an historical style dating from the eleventh century when it was the first kind of beer to be hopped. Now, however, the flavours in a Witbier come from spices, as well as the unmalted soft wheat used in the recipe. This Little White Lie had been spiced with bitter orange peel, coriander, and cumin, making it like a creamy, wheaty gin and as ideal for a warm, summer's afternoon.

The rest of the complex range of Belgian-style beers all have similar hard-hitting religious names - Perdition, Damnation, Defenestration, Rejection, Salvation, Sanctification, Supplication, and Consecration. We tasted all of these, but here are my favourites: Salvation (8.75%) is a strong dark ale, with malt, roast, smoke, spice, and lots of complexity, a long, drying finish lingering on to plum flavours. Sanctification (6.75%) is brewed with a long, cool fermentation, using only the funky Brettanomyces yeast. Those stinky aromas were well in balance, with sour citrus flavours. The final two beers were full-on, complex, and mature. Supplication (7%) is aged for 12-15 months in old Pinot Noir barrels alongside sour cherries; the long ageing allows different yeasts - Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus (the latter two yeasts really contribute to any stinky, old-sock aromas in a beer) - to develop. The last and most complex beer of the extensive line-up was Consecration (10%), aged for 4-8 months in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels, with the same putrid yeasts. Whereas the Pinot Noir flavours in the Supplication were masked by the sour cherries, the Cabernet aromas were apparent - tobacco, cedar, spice, and dried fruits (the beer had been aged with currants in the barrels).

While waiting for our table, I popped into the nearby Barnes & Noble and purchased a copy of Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide to the World's Greatest Drink by Randy Mosher (real name, I can only assume). Perusing this book while tasting 18 beers in a range of styles traditionally made all over Europe and the USA was education brought to life. Going to beer school on a Saturday afternoon is a lot less like detention and more like a whole lot of fun.