Russian River Pliny The Younger

I made it to Hollingshead's Deli in Orange today to get my first taste of Pliny the Younger and I wasn't let down. Making it more interesting, I got there about 10 minutes after they stopped serving sandwiches which I was depending on for dinner, and thus had 24 oz's of this 11% hop bomb on an empty stomach... love it!

The beer pours, well as you can see to the left, a rich golden with a slight light orange tone. The smell is definitely hoppy, but not as potent as I thought it would be at first. The aroma has a little bit of earthy hops, but much more citrus hops. It's pretty tropical I guess. The taste was a lot more citrus and pine... just loads of this, and somewhat sweet though not overly malty. Since I hadn't had this before I can't comment on it's dryness compared to how it use to be, but it did finish slightly dry, though not horribly so. Younger just flows so well together, there's no astringency or harshness at all in this beer. The accolades this beer has earned among beer fanatics across the country are valid. They also had Pliny the Elder and the regular Russian River IPA on tap, so hopefully I can make it back in the next week and get a little side-by-side tasting going. As for now, Younger gets a 4.85 from me on BA, yeah that's an A+.