Summit
Russian River Brewing Company

On-tap at the Toronado single hop festival. Similar in appearance to their bravo entry this one is a light tight gold with a nice small whtie head of foam that is compact but sticks around and even leaves some leggy lacing on the glass. The aromas are all sticky green summit hops with nice alpha acidity and good hoppy oily resiny profile of scattered forestry and pinecone/grapefruit/citrus loveliness. Taste is hoppy up front with a stingy citrus acid and the middle palatte is malty with a great fresh baked british dugh bread bird middle. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with a great drinkabiltiy for this single hop brew. Overall, rpetty damn good for an all summit brew, by far one of the best of the challenge, and also better than the bravo one they made as well. I like it.

This arrived as a nice looking solid yellow and gold color. The head and lace are minor.

The smell has plenty of hops but is missing depth. Malt content does not really come through. Pine flavor sits solid through the taste. The mouthfeel is medium and round. It's easy to drink.

07/20/06- On tap at the Toronado in San Francisco, CA.

Presentation- Via the tap into a standard pint glass.

Appearance- Deep golden in color, smaller, but creamy 1/4 inch white head with whispy streaks of lacing left behind.

Smell- Definite hops with an odd yeasty scent. Doesn't smell like other typical RR brews. Guess it's the hop makeup. Some pine and a bit of grapefruit. Kinda laid back though.

Taste- This reminds me of Hop ot it, but with even less potent hops. Rather more of a light toasted malt presence takes over leaving the hops in the dust. Not a bunch of taste from the hops. More pine than anything, but really nothing intense than I am used to. Then again, I don't think it's supposed to be intense.

Mouthfeel- Seems a tad watery with a lower carbonation. Kinda like a cask brew with some lighter carbonation added.

Drinkability- Not really impressed here. But, I guess it's kinda an experimental brew. No worries as I know I can go back to Blind Pig, Elder, Younger or their regualr IPA just about anytime I want.

Had on tap at the Russian River brewpub. The appearance is understated, looks like a pilsner, clear golden color.

But the aroma is oh my god good. Sweet AND hoppy, overall one of the best IPA aromas ever. Actually I'm reviewing from notes, and the next day I tried the Summit IPA from Magnolia brewpub which smelled just as good. I think the Summit hops aroma is perfect.

The flavor is nicely balanced, hoppy upfront and awesome malty after-taste (backwards from usual). World class and a shame if they brew it only once.

Brewed as part of the Single Hop Festival at Drakes, sixteen local (Bay Area) brewers made an IPA from the same recipe with the only variations being type of malts used, local water and the house yeast. All used Summit, a new dwarf variety as the single hop for the recipe.

The beer arrives a deep golden brown with a thick head of clean white foam. The head lasts a good while and leaves nice lacing on the glass.

The aroma is incredibly attractive - presuming that you find hops an attractive smell. There's no malt in the nose but there's a very clean, leafy fresh hop aroma that's very impressive. Some pine scents but more of the Cascade like citrus notes are evident.

The taste is, if possible, better than the smell. There's a hint of golden grain sweetness up front with notes of very lightly toasted bread but from that point on it's fresh, green leafy hop flavors. For the very flavorful hop presence there's surprisingly little bitterness - I don't know if that's a characteristic of the hop or a result of Russian River's brewing process. There are a lot of bold, clean hop flavors of citrus and herb here without any overpowering notes.

Mouthfeel is surprisingly light with lots of very fine carbonation adding to the softness. No oily residue, no residual sugars to leave the palate sticky and even though the bitterness is lower than you might expect, the finish is very clean and light. If it hadn't come out out of a tap I would have guessed it was bottle conditioned.

Wow this is a drinkable beer - it's a damn shame it's a one-off brew. The beer shares a lot of characteristics with Russian River's Hop Time Harvest Ale with just a little less hop punch. There's enough malt to keep it balanced but the focus of the beer is obviously on the flavorful Summit hops.