Virtual Illusions

Just got back from my Smithsonian beer “class.” If you are not lucky enough to at least know what one of these is, if not actually attending one, allow me to educate. These classes are held at the Brickskeller the premier beer bar in D.C. (and certainly the East coast and probably the U.S.). They have over 1,000 beers available though some jest ‘not all at once.’ This comes from the fact that invariably some or many beers ordered won’t be in stock. In my opinion this originates from the fact that their menu is static while their beer selection is fluid (Mmmm… yummy fluid).

Anyway Jason and Tom were there which was good since I didn’t really have confirmation that they had gotten tickets. I had heard that Jason got spousal permission, but I hadn’t heard that he had acquired actual tickets. At a party a few weeks ago Chris claimed he was going to sign up but that hardly counts and he didn’t seem to be there.

Anyway back to the “class”, a brewer, in this case Vinnie Cilurzo the owner/brewer of Russian River Brewing Co. of Santa Rosa, CA, comes by and talks about his beers as we taste them. Tonight we had samples (~5 oz) of nine beers. Russian River’s (RR) main claim to fame seems to be as the first brewer of a double or imperial IPA. In addition to that they seems to have two main beer lines, Big Hops and Belgium style.

Of the big hops line we tried Blind Pig IPA, Russian River IPA, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger. As a disclaimer, I enjoy hops but rarely feel beers need more that can be found in a standard IPA. Pliny the Elder is the double IPA weighing in at 100 IBU and Pliny the Younger is a triple IPA weighing in at ‘Gobs” of IBU. Apparently the techniques for measuring IBUs become unreliable past 120 or so.

I didn’t feel the two basic IPA measured up to Dogfish Head 60 min which is easy enough to get. The hops were there but there was something about them that made me come away with the feeling that the flavor wasn’t as clean as it should/could have been. This is full on beer snob mode, if you handed me either I’d be happy enough.

The Elder and Younger had too much hops for my taste. I’ve had the style before and they aren’t a bad example, but at that hop level really all you can taste is hops everything else gets lost. So full marks for example of style, but not my favorite of styles.

The Belgium styled beers were much better to my taste. We had Damnation, Temptation, Little White Lie and Supplication. Supplication was by far the best. Vinnie started off calling it a brown ale, but this is a mistake. It may have gotten there by the wrong route, but if you tasted it you would be pretty sure it was a decent lambic. It had a bit of cherry, I might shave just a touch of the cherry off but it wasn’t enough to seriously notice if weren’t at a beer tasting.

Second favorite was Temptation which is a golden ale aged in Chardonnay barrels. Quite good. Little White Lie is an unfiltered spiced wheat. A very good summer beer. I would have preferred if its spiced/tartness was a bit higher, but I tasted it 6th so it is quite possible outside of the context of big hop ales it would have been near perfect.

The Temptation was okay but it didn’t seem to do anything special for me, just sort of average. The Perdition was a sort of hybrid thing, not really Pale Ale, not really Belgium. I suspect it will work itself to a good place eventually, but for the moment seems to still be a work in progress.

More stuff going on but that sums up the beer tasting.

Beer