[Please see update on Russian River Brewing expansion and Pliny the Elder bottle release to take place in July here]

(Santa Rosa, CA) – Russian River Brewing issued an update on Russian River Consecration, the newest beer in the barrel-aged series that we first reported on this past Friday. As Jay Brooks reported yesterday after his trip to the new brewery, the first beer officially brewed at the new brewery was Consecration (Batch 002). Brooks reported that the second batch would be slightly different from the first as it is brewed with bitter orange peel though Natalie Cilurzo, Co-Owner, makes it sound as if the second batch was brewed with black currants (like Batch 001). Color us confused. As far as release dates are concerned, batch 001 was made at the brewpub a while back and is still anyone’s guess (2nd half 2008). Batch 001 was a test batch released only at the brewpub a while back. Batch 002 should be a late Q1 2009 release (around March).

We also discovered that they brewed the first batch of Russian River Pliny the Elder to appear in bottles. The beer should go out in bottles next month.