RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING’s BLIND PIG IPA

Once you get rolling with a certain brewery, you just don't want the fun to end. And when that brewery is constantly revamping its lineup, coming out with multiple seasonals and one-offs, and is as top-drawer excellent as Santa Rosa, CA's RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING, well, you'll try just about anything they throw on tap or in a bottle. It was with such an attitude that I sampled their BLIND PIG IPA the other evening at the Jupiter Pub in Berkeley, CA. Blind Pig is actually a resurrected beer recipe, brought to life again by Russian River master brewer Vinnie Cilurzo, who had previously worked at a defunct brewery called Blind Pig. As expected, it was fantastic. It was a yellow/copper beer filled to the brim with hops and citrus flavors, maybe tangerine or something? Totally pleasant to drink, not outrageously hopped to my taste, but others beg to differ. I wanted to see what others were saying about this fine beverage over on Beer Advocate, and I stumbled across this great comment from “DaPeculierDane”

“My first impression is shock that this IPA has considerably more about juniper/pine than the 2xIPA from the same brewer. This beer’s aroma is intense, painful even. My tongue is freaking out as if I were about to dip it into a vat of citric acid. The juniper in this aroma is just plain ferocious. Inhaling Blind Pig is like having a bully grind your face into a juniper bush on the playground. My eyes are starting to water. Taste is more about sensation then flavor. It stings, it burns, it pricks, it bites, it kicks, and it growls. Beyond that and the thick pine oils I can taste pineapple and apricot but that’s about it (I don’t mind one but. This rocks). Finish is light, dry, and citric. Body is on the lighter side of medium. Appearance is similar to Pliny the Elder, just a tad lighter shade of golden amber leaning toward yellow with a thinner, shorter lived white head. Outstanding IPA, not for the faint of heart or hops. Just damned adventurous”

It just goes to show you that there's no accounting for taste, hunh? One man's tongue-destroyer is another man's delicious, well-balanced, classic IPA. I'm not sure how many IPAs these guys make, but that Vinnie fella sure knows his game pretty well. 8.5/10.