“Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them” – Queen Alexandrina Victoria
Yeah. Says the overfed, Alfred-Hitchcock-looking former queen of the United Kingdom, who just happens to have a frosty, fresh bottle of Pliny in front of her. You keep the cheap beer, Vicky, give us lowly folk the good beer, and we’ll try to avoid revolt. Deal? (I’m not making any promises though.)
UBN
Image (sans Pliny bottle) via kingsacademy.com
Every year, on the first Friday of February, Sonoma County, California-based Russian River Brewing Co. releases its limited triple IPA, Pliny the Younger. So the fact that the 2013 Pliny the Younger will be released at Russian River’s brewpub on Friday, February 1 isn’t really news. But Russian River also shared some new release details on its Pliny the Younger 2013 in a new blog post.
If you’re not familiar with Pliny the Younger, you’re not paying close enough attention. Or you’re just not as big of a beer nerd as I am. Pliny the Younger is the “brother IPA” to Russian River’s stellar Pliny the Elder double IPA, which is one of my favorite IPAs, if not my single favorite IPA in the whole damn world. It’s fantastic. I admit, I’ve never had Pliny the Younger, because it’s made in very small quantities and only served at Russian River’s brewpub and at select local bars and establishments. But some day I will make a trip to wine country in February with the sole goal of securing a few pints of Pliny the Younger.
Now, those 2013 release details I mentioned, from Russian River:
“Pliny the Younger will be released at our brewpub in Downtown Santa Rosa on February 1st, 2013 (always the first Friday in February)! Younger will be available on tap in 10 ounce glasses (no growlers or bottles) for 2 weeks, or 14 days. We will allocate a certain amount each day until we run out for the day. Last year we had very few days where we ran out at all! The last day we will have it at the pub will be February 14th. Last year the wait was up to 5 hours, and sometimes there was no wait at all. It’s a bit unpredictable, however, except on weekends where you can definitely expect the longest wait. We have learned that waiting in line can be fun and can even lead to new relationships, especially after several glasses of Younger! So please use the buddy system while getting “Younger” at our pub (your friends will hopefully look out for you!). As far as distribution is concerned, we usually start distributing a small amount of kegs to our accounts and distributors right after we release it at the pub. We are planning to brew the same amount this year and release the same quantities for distribution, but who gets what is yet to be determined. First batch of Younger will be brewed this Thursday at the pub! I saw the man himself hand-selecting this year’s Younger hops just last week… artist or mad scientist? Probably a lot of both :-)”
And a description of Pliny the Younger, from Russian River’s website:
“Pliny the Younger, the man, was Pliny the Elder’s nephew and adopted son. They lived nearly 2,000 years ago! Pliny the Elder is our Double IPA, so we felt it was fitting to name our Triple IPA after his son. It is almost a true Triple IPA with triple the amount of hops as a regular I.P.A. That said, it is extremely difficult, time and space consuming, and very expensive to make. And that is why we don’t make it more often! This beer is very full-bodied with tons of hop character in the nose and throughout. It is also deceptively well-balanced and smooth.”
UBN
Image via Brewniversal.com
One of my favorite IPAs on the planet: Russian River Brewing Co.’s Pliny the Elder. One of the best smartphones on the planet: Apple’s iPhone. (Full disclosure: I’m an Android/BlackBerry guy, but I realize Apple makes great smartphones.)
I came across the Pliny the Elder iPhone case/ bottle opener you see above while visiting Russian River’s website to order one of the company’s goblet glasses. It costs $25 plus shipping, which is reasonable. Unfortunately the Pliny iPhone case/opener is only available for the iPhone 4/4S—no iPhone 5 model yet, though I’m sure iBottleOpener.com, which makes the case, will update its product line soon.
Man, I wish I had an ice-cold Pliny right now. Oh well, this Maine Beer Co. Lunch IPA will have to do. No themed bottle opener to crack it open with though… 😦
UBN
If you’re a true beer nerd, you know Pliny the Elder. You may not have actually tried it, but you know Pliny.
The double IPA from Sonoma County, California’s Russian River Brewing Company is easily one of the best and most complex IPAs ever made. And it’s extremely difficult to find, especially outside of northern California.
Whenever I’m in the Bay Area, I make it a point to track down Pliny. And I usually find it in the strangest places; it’s never in the beer bars I visit, and in the bars that do normally have it, the keg was just kicked or something. I found today’s bottles in a weird little wing joint that was featured on The Travel Channel’s Man v Food, called SmokeEaters. (My Plinys—yes, I had two, I had to—were bottled less than a month ago, and they were super fresh.) When I was in San Francisco earlier this summer I found Pliny on draft at a sports bar near Union Square, the 4th Street Bar & Grill.
But it really doesn’t matter where you drink it, Pliny the Elder never disappoints.
From Russian River:
“Pliny the Elder, born in 23 AD, was a Roman naturalist, scholar, historian, traveler, officer and writer. Pliny and his contemporaries created the original botanical name for hops, ‘Lupus Salictarius,’ meaning ‘wolf among scrubs.’ Hop vines at that time grew wild among willows, likened to wolves roaming wild in the forest. Pliny the Elder died in 79 AD while saving people during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He was immortalized by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who continued his uncle’s legacy by documenting much of what his uncle experienced during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This beer is an homage to the man who discovered hops and perished while being a humanitarian. “
UBN
Urban Beer Nerd 