Russian River Toronado 20th Anniversary

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

Draft, Toronado. Second beer at Toronado -tion night. They were out of little glasses when I was served this beer, so, happily, I got most of a 16 oz shaker glassful of this wonderful beer for $4 (Toronado is awesome). This is a strong sour with a wonderful flavor, one of my favorites so far. There’s a strong oak flavor, enjoyable and drying. The aroma is fruity and sour, raisins, peaches, vinegar, funk, the works. The flavor has a calm alcohol burn, perhaps once too hot but now just right. The notes are even punchier on the tongue. There’s a significant amount of fruity malt flavor. The tartness is upfront and relatively bracing. There’s some good funk floating around. It’s a great, big sour with a ton of flavor.

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

Bottle at Toronado San Diego shared by Mikkel of Mikkeller Brewing...thanks! Pours with a slightly cloudy, amber body topped by a medium thick to thick head with a good amount of lacing. It’s sour with a slight tart note, some funk and a little sweet maltiness to round it out. Lihgt to medium bodied and dry.

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

This Belgian Strong pours a slightly cloudy reddish amber color from a 750ml corked bottle. Large sized white foamy head, with good retention and excellent lacing. The aroma is fruity, with lots of oak and some serious funk. A medium bodied BSA. The malts are fruity and sweet; there are lots of oak, red wine and funk flavors here as well, lots of funk, horse blanket and tartness with a nice maltyness in the background. Very complex, there are a lot of flavors mixing and matching here. The brett and sourness are coming forward and competing with all that barrel stuff. Very nice. Lively carbonation. Hides the alcohol well. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is clean and crisp. Aftertaste is slightly tart and funky.

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

Bottled. Thanks to omhper for this crazy beer. Pours out in a cloudy reddish brown colour with a low creamy white foam. Plenty aromas screaming for attention tart red berries, melon, wood, cork, funk, over-riped cherries and dark malts. Woody and funky full flavour of stable, berries, grapefruit, pears soaked in syrup, juniper and pepper. Full-bodied. Woody long aftertaste lemon, immature raspberries, grapefruit and peppery alcohol. WOW!.

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

Bottled. Hazy nutbrown colour, mediumsized beige head. Aroma is sour berries and acidic wood, some mild notes of cherries. Flavour is also very sour and acidic fruits and berries along with some earth and yeast. Very nice brew.

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

NorCal Feb '08 - Not your everyday Belgian Strong is an understatement. A fantastic trip for your tastebuds to enjoy as this beer covers a lot of flavors most Belgian Strong's don't. The aroma is oaky, fruity with a strong emphasis on tart cherriess, bretty, and lightly acidic. Flavors are nearly on par with the nose, but adds some caramel sweetness up front like some kind of cherry/caramel dessert. It also has a subtle wine character to the whole beer, but maybe that's the brett and oak coming together. Excellent beer!

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

This beer pours from the 750ml bottle with a wispy, ring of a head that sits atop a hazy, amber-brown colored beer. The aroma is a mix of sour aromatics, and major oak. The oak character is quite encompassing and quite complex as far as oak goes; aromas of spicy wood, hot almost whisky like notes, soft buttery wood and touches of vanillin are all quite evident. This aroma would really appeal to those who really love oak. For me though, the aroma is way too one dimensional; I really prefer oak character to serve as a backbone for the malt, hop and fermentation character.

The beer tastes sour up front and thankfully the oak notes are much more in check in the flavor department. Fruit notes of tart plums and fleshy tamarind notes are in evidence and they intermingle with and are wrapped up in the sour character of this beer. This has a really nice level of funk and sourness to it. There is lots of complexity to this brew with additional flavors of cherries (is there some supplication in this blend), tannic woodiness, spicy oak, touches of butterscotch and a hint of vanillin. This has a fullness to the body, that carries the flavors quite well; part of the fullness seems to be from the barrel character (tannins and such providing additional body).

I am much relieved that the oak notes where only part of the overall mix in the flavor of this beer. I really like how this is a nice mix of fruit flavors, oak derived notes and tart funk. In fact the flavor is really well integrated and all the flavors are delivered cleanly to my palate without any muddied / muddled quality.