{"id":15844,"date":"2019-10-10T05:54:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T11:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/?p=15844"},"modified":"2019-10-10T05:54:25","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T11:54:25","slug":"russian-river-brewing-bugs-circa-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/russian-river-brewing-bugs-circa-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian River Brewing \u2018bugs\u2019 circa 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/images\/20191010-mixed.jpg\" width=\"610\" height=\"447\" alt=\"Russian River Brewing microbes - parts of original mixed culture\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/images\/20191010-barrels.jpg\" width=\"325\" height=\"489\" alt=\"Barrel room, Russian River brewpub, Santa Rosa\" class=\"alignright size-full\" \/>The carboys at the top contain many of the microbes that became part of the \u201cRussian River bacteria blend\u201d that contributes to the unique character of beers such as Temptation and Supplication. Details are in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodbeerhunting.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/7\/still-friends-after-all-these-years-the-hunt-for-the-microbes-behind-americas-first-sour-beers\">story posted at Good Beer Hunting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The photo was taken in 2006 in the barrel room of the Russian River Brewing Co. pub (at the time, its only brewery) in Santa Rosa, Calif. These days, hundreds &#8212; heck, maybe thousands &#8212; of brewers ferment beers with that they call their own unique mixed cultures. This is relatively new.<\/p>\n<p>(Some might even suggest so new that we should wait to be sure the aren&#8217;t racing ahead a bit quickly.)<\/p>\n<p>For <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodbeerhunting.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/7\/still-friends-after-all-these-years-the-hunt-for-the-microbes-behind-americas-first-sour-beers\">\u201cStill Friends After All These Years\u201d<\/a> I talked with brewers who have kept in touch with the same microbes (known affectionately as <em>bugs<\/em> or <em>critters<\/em>) that soured their beers for the past 15 years, and sometimes longer. Included are a few beers you may have forgotten, or perhaps never heard off.  <\/p>\n<p>The carboys in the photo are long gone. The blend of microbes Russian River co-founder Vinnie Cilurzo settled on is stored in plastic totes today, although he is using a new process to make Temptation and other brands these days.<\/p>\n<p>He has been, and still is, generous about sharing these Russian River <em>bugs<\/em> with homebrewers. Twice he has taken wood chips aged along with Damnation, something Russian River does every twenty-third batch, and soaked them in Beatification or Sonambic, then given away \u201cdime bags\u201d of the chips at conferences. He also provides More Beer, a homebrew supply store, with Cabernet Sauvignon barrels that were used to make Consecration. The supplier cuts those into chunks it sells as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.morebeer.com\/products\/kit-allgrain-russian-rivers-consecration-5-gallons.html\">part of a kit<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The carboys at the top contain many of the microbes that became part of the \u201cRussian River bacteria blend\u201d that contributes to the unique character of beers such as Temptation and Supplication. Details are in a story posted at Good Beer Hunting. The photo was taken in 2006 in the barrel room of the Russian &#8230; <a title=\"Russian River Brewing \u2018bugs\u2019 circa 2006\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/russian-river-brewing-bugs-circa-2006\/\" aria-label=\"More on Russian River Brewing \u2018bugs\u2019 circa 2006\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[706,606,705],"class_list":["post-15844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beers-of-conviction","tag-mixed-cultures","tag-russian-river-brewing","tag-sour-beers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-47y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15844"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15846,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844\/revisions\/15846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}