Friday, April 10, 2009

Pliny the just-really-great DIPA

My good friend and co-worker Kat brought me back some great beers from her recent trip to Washington state, a requested barleywine from Alaskan Brewing Company, and a surprise bottle of Pliny the Elder from Russian River.

I'd had Pliny once before, and found it simply incredible, one of the best double IPAs I had ever had. But this bottle, while nonetheless great, didn't seem to be the glass o' heaven I had remembered it to be. Could it be the batch was a bit different? Or the fact that Minnesota is awash in wonderful DIPAs these days? Or maybe something I ate earlier (just pizza) threw my palate off? In any case, I imagine this beer would still be in heavy rotation in my fridge if it was available here, but it seems (like many highly sought-after beers) the mysticism of it has disappeared, and I'm left with *just* a really great double IPA.

2 comments:

donaldosborn said...

FWIW I have had it maybe 3 totally diff times (once on tap in San Fran, and two diff times in bottles) and it has always been good. So I'm voting for either you weren't really wanting it, or maybe a somewhat off bottle.

Eric said...

Let me be clear (and I thought I was), it was a great beer, and I thoroughly enjoyed it....its up there with the best of 'em, but I feel like I've had a lot of great DIPAs.