Collaboration...not Litigation

Collaboration...not Litigation is a special seasonal offering from both Russian River and Avery.  I have always enjoyed beers from both brewers so I was excited to learn about this beer on my trip to San Francisco.  Memories of Hog Heaven, Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig, Old Jubilation, etc. started racing through my mind.  I also knew that Avery's Belgian beers were generally pretty enjoyable.  My general rule of thumb is that either the Russian River or Avery brands are worth trying even if it means committing to a 6 pack before trying.  So dropping $12.99 on a 22 oz seemed reasonable to me.  (Let's be 100% honest...I rarely steer away from a beer because of price!)   

So how do two brewers end up collaborating on a beer?  Each brewery was offering a Belgian style beer titled "Salvation" and rather than sue the pants off each other decided to get together to see how the two beers mixed.  The details of the experiments are documented on Avery's website.  The basic gist is this...they got together and mixed the two separate Salvation's in different proportions until they found that magic sweet spot and declared "Eureka!"  They even infer that lots of sampling went on.  But somehow I wonder if all that sampling did not lead them astray because bottom line I found this beer disappointing.  It certainly was not horrible.  Definitely not your average Belgian but in a very unspectacular way.  I wondered if maybe I was just having an off day or if the bottle I got had issues somewhere along the way.  So I hopped on Rate Beer to see what others had to say.  Sounds like others also preferred the two Salvations as individual beers.  So while a noble experiment, it sounds like Collaboration should have ended at "Experimentation...Hell of a lot of fun!".  But don't take my word alone...spend the $12.99 to try it yourself.  You just might love it and then you can tell me just how wrong I am.

My notes on the tasting...

• Aroma - Spicy, Some malt notes come through, Banana
• Taste - Not overly malty, Bitterness is apparent and lingers after swallowing
• Appearance - Creamy head, Cloudy brown to dark red
• Mouth Feel - Highly carbonated, Leads to a dry finish on the tongue