Has Russian River begun contract brewing?

Although appearing tasty and seemingly innocuous, you clearly have a blatantly contract brewed batch of PtE. Please send the remaining 5 bottles to me for proper disposal. Aside from you paying the shipping, there will be no additional charge.

 

The point is that with a RR water report, FW can duplicate the water. FW starts with RO water, so mineral additions will match what RR has.

Equipment differences is the bigger issue.

 

So they do use a filtration system for their base water at RR. Why didn't you just say that in the first place, which is what I was alluding too? Not all breweries do that.

 

Matt has said FW does on a podcast. That gives FW a clean slate to build RR water. All FW needs is the RR water report for the required ions.

 

Sorry, I forgot everyone was up to date on the FW podcast except me.

 

I'm pretty sure firestone has begun brewing Pliny. If you follow Matt on Instagram he has posted pictures of Pliny on tap at his own house and on tap for Some private event they held. I, assuming it's the Pliny they brewed.

 

No, FW does not serve Pliny on tap while they are brewing it.

 

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding going on here, perhaps concealed by some assumption on both sides of the exchange. While not a brewer or a water chemist, I think things work the following way.

Since FW uses RO water it doesn't really matter whether RR filters their water or not, so long as the Water Report they provide to FW is the report on the water they use for brewing their beer. RO stands for Reverse Osmosis and RO water is effectively a "blank slate" so FW can and will "tune" their water with additional minerals, etc. to match any water profile provided by RR. Since both breweries know a good bit about their water chemistry I think we can rule out the difference in water as influencing any perceived difference in taste.

BTW: Wikepedia has what seems to be a reasonable discussion of RO Water.