Unless yet another wild ale from Russian River comes my way soon, this will be the last Russian River review for awhile.  Temptation is a blond ale aged in used French Oak chardonnay barrels and is the brewery’s most recent 750 ml bottle release. Prior to tasting this beer I expected that I would enjoy it but that it would not compare to Beatification, the best Russian River beer I have tasted so far, and this turned out to be correct.

I was most concerned about the use of chardonnay barrels. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this grape but, as we all know after watching the comedy-drama Sideways, chardonnay is one of the most  abused grapes in the United States; dulled by secondary malolactic fermentation and the vanilla taste of  oak.  Of course, the use of old oak is one of the essential elements in traditional lambic brewing and contributes to the fermentation of the beer and its complexity. The danger with the use of new oak, however, is that such advantages risk being offset by the oak dominating at the expense of other flavors. In this sense, oak has similar effects  such as leaving too much residual sugar in a beer (or wine). Fortunately, Temptation is barrel aged in old French chardonnay barrels for 9 to 15 months but the oak is certainly present. As in the other Russian River wild ales, souring bacteria and Brettanomyces are used and the resulting brew is refermented in the bottle.

The following notes were taken on Friday, September 11, 2009:

Batch 004X1. Poured into a Cantillon Geuze glass.

Appearance: Pours a very fizzy head (2-3 fingers) with lots of carbonation. Blond. More head retention than expected.

Smell: Soft barnyard smell. Brettanomyces. Some citrus and a little sweet and spicy.

Taste:  Brettanomyces. Slightly sour. Round “numbing” taste, ending on a neutral note. Yeasty. Light in flavor. Grapefruit. Soft tannins.

Mouthfeel: Medium. Fizzy. Light on the tongue and buttery.

Drinkability: Less drinkable than some of their other wild ales. Perhaps the fuller and fizzy mouthfeel contributes to this.

“Is it beer, or is it wine?” asks the label on the bottle. After drinking Temptation I am inclined to answer that the similarities with wine are more than countered by the surprisingly dominant note of the brettanomyces yeast. I do not recall having tasted a beer from Russian River where the brett contributed so much to the smell and flavor. This combination of brett and chardonnay  is certainly unique, if not provocative.

It is not hard to “reverse-engineer” why I enjoyed this beer less than Consecration and Beatification. There is the royal presence of brettanomyces without enough sourness or hops to balance it.  And as far as the wine barrel of choice is concerned, chardonnay does not rank among my favorite wines (perhaps next time, Russian River can pick a Savennières barrel from the Loire Valley in France). I found this beer just a little too soft and buttery for a wild ale and the finish was remarkably short and neutral. I would not hesitate to drink Temptation over most American ales but I do not care as much about this beer as  I do about the other Russian River sour ales.