Russian River Sanctification

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Pours barely translucent apricot with a fair off-white head. Aroma yields sharply tart fruit, mainly tropical with some citrus and pomme. Flavor produces tart fruity and fresh malt notes, crisp and drinkable. Texture offers OK body and perky fizz. Sanctified.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Sampled from bottle. Pours faintly cloudy gold with a white head. Tropical, funky aroma. Balanced and sour. Pineapple, wild cherry and hint of barnyard in the flavor. Aggressive carbonation. Quite enjoyable. No faults. Try it if you can find it.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Had this beautiful brew on tap at Russian River in Santa Rosa. Pours a hazy golden-orangeish colour with a nice fluffhead. Some soft tropical fruit, yeasty notes and pepper. Taste is mildly acidic, semi sweetness, lemon and well integrated hops.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

I had this beer as part of a 14 beer sampler at the Russian River Brew Pub on 14 July 2011. I also had a full glass of this sour and funky beer! It was one of my faves on the evening - a sour bomb. This was funky and smelled of horse blanket - a true brett beer.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Light golden Belgian Ale that is all about showcasing the Brettanomyces. Dry and bland malt base with a heavy dose of spicy pepper, lemon and a hint of coriander followed by a full bottle of funky barnyard yeast.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Pours a hazy honey yellow gold .. great foam, lacing is like happy clouds .. beautiful aroma, nice and bretty .. .tastes like playing a harmonica, delicious stuff, light and refined .. . And I and my brother, who's now an alcoholic himself, just about died laughing. - And this is a happy memory for you? - Of Course!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

is this a Redemption with Brett? It was good, but i was super excited when it went on tap the day before my visit...and Consecration, which I had previously overlooked, blew it away. This was sour as expected, in the aroma and taste, but not as mouth puckering or as complex as I expected. a touch of barnyard funk, but less complex than i expected. very dry in the finish, which was it's best quality.

Aroma: 10 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Batch 002; Sampled October 2008
A reasonable pour produces a two-finger thick, pale tan colored head in my large Tripel Karmeliet tulip. The beer is quite clear and has an orange tinged, pale amber color that shows a perfectly, brilliantly clear, rich gold color when held up to the light. The aroma is absolutely delightful, bone dry and has a complex mix of aromas that remind me of tart pear, sour apple, but with some aromatic Macintosh like floral notes, lactic acid, ripening cheddar that is taking a turn towards funky, musty wood, even some spicy oak (despite this never having seen wood) and some touches of musky, dried-sweat like character that I wouldn’t quite characterize as barnyard, but close. The funky, farmhouse cheese note is actually quite prominent here and is quite appetizing and there is also a fair amount of fruitiness, despite the fact that the aroma seems devoid of sweetness.

Shockingly tart to my palate, though I wouldn’t say this is particularly because this is overly tart; it is more a statement of where my palate was upon my first sip. Lots of lactic acid mixes with fruity esters to produce flavors of grapefruit, a touch of Meyer Lemon, and even some sour orange. Extremely quaffable, there is a persistent, prickly carbonation that adds some texture and the body is very light, the acidity almost adds a touch of viscousness to this brew that at times can develop a sort of creamy softness. There is a light ripe cheese note to the flavor, though the expressive sourness seems to mute this quite a bit (though it becomes more and more noticeable as the beer warms up from its initially cool temperature). Other fruit flavors are found here, all without having any sweetness in this beer, of musk melon, cantaloupe and some Macintosh flavors.

A second pour of this brew sees a touch of yeast sediment that lightly clouds up this beer and adds a touch of yeast-like roundness to the flavor. I really am enjoying the aggressive sourness in this beer, it is not as much as a ''hard'' Lambic, but is quite significant. Suffice it to say that my 750ml bottle of this disappeared way to fast. Fantastically drinkable, with an amazingly complex aroma, simply a great beer.

Batch 1, Sampled April 2005
Total: 4.3, 10/8/8/9/8
This beer is madly carbonated, intense streams of cascading bubbles rise through this lightly hazy straw-gold colored brew. It holds up a frothy pale head that is quite thick and becomes quite rocky after a short bit. The aroma is spritzy and funky at the same time. I get notes of lime peel, coriander, grains of paradise, a hint of cinnamon, as well as funky notes of musty-moldy leather, clay, a hint of sharp vegetal notes, and damp cellars. The aroma is quite complex and quite interesting, it is definitely worth smelling and appreciating for a couple of minutes before tasting.

The taste is light and spritzy up front with a sharp lemony acidity that has a nice sweetness to it that almost tastes artificial in nature. This beer foams quite a bit on the tongue as it goes down. The finish is slightly funky, though not nearly as much as the aroma would suggest. The finish is slightly earthy with a musty cellar note. This beer really is quite light and refreshing, it is almost as if a lemon has been added to my Duvel glass. While I really am enjoying this beer, I am starting to think that Brettanomyces is better employed as a supporting cast member in beer. Granted I have only had two of these 100% Brett beers, but as the beer gets older than a couple of months the beer needs some more complexity that would be supplied by a funky Belgian yeast.

Purchased: Russian River Brewing