Beerlog: Russian River Redemption

For the purpose of this post, I'd normally just link to my review on Beer Advocate, but they're now requiring a login to view reviews...

So, anyway, the FedEx people brought me a package today. This package contained four beers from Russian River Brewing Company, aka, my favorite brewery in the whole wide world. For those of you who don't know, Russian River is sort of coming to the forefront of American craft brewing right now due to their explorative approach to beer and their much-lauded line of Belgian-style and Belgian-inspired beers, all having names ending in "tion" - Damnation, Salvation, Supplication, Temptation, Erudition, etc. One of the beers I was recieved was Redemtion, which is Russian River's interpretation of a Belgian "single" - as opposed to a "dubbel," "tripel," or "quadrupel," - a low-alcohol "session"-style beer that rarely makes its way outside of Belgium. IMO, it's a style of beer that's massively underdone - there should be way more of it available in the US...

The beer itself is lightly golden and hazy. There's a lush head and high carbonation from the brettanomyces in the beer - brettanomyces is a kind of wild yeast that, though avoided in other beers, is embraced in a few Belgian styles for the "farmhouse funk" that it lends to the mix. The aroma is all apple and pear, with a hint of sweaty-funk and tartness from the brett. In the mouth the beer is amazingly light, both from the low overall alcohol content (4.8%) and the fact that the brett has eaten away any and all residual sugars. Falvor-wise, the beer breaks from style some, with no hop presence, depending entirely upon the esters and the funk. This isn't unpleasant, it's just unexpected... The beer leaves a lingering metallic twang, oddly enoughy.

So, in the end, it's a worthy beer, but were you to make a purchase from Russian River, I'd recommend Damnation or Salvation over it. Or better yet, wait until the summer and order up a case of the lovely chardonnay/blonde ale chimera that is Temptation...