Bottoms Up

And now the news…Talked to Natalie Cilurzo, co-founder of Russian River with her husband-brewer Vinnie, last night (Saturday, May 17,2008) at the final Savor tasting in Washington. Here’s the word on Pliny the Elder in bottles.

“It’s coming to stores in June or July,” Natalie said. “Vinnie’s still tinkering with it right now.” She adds she’s gotten an thousand e-mails from Pliny and Russian River fans asking about Pliny and apologizes to all of us for not returning our queries.

The word about Pliny has reached the East Coast. There were 48 breweries in the hall this weekend, each pouring two beers. The only stand I saw thar ran out was Russian River. All the Pliny and Supplication (barrel aged with cherries) were gone by 8 p.m.

Russian River was one of five Northern California craft brewers at Savor, along with 21st Amendment, San Francisco, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, Santa Cruz, Hoppy Brewing, Sacramento, and Sierra Nevada, Chico.