Russian River Brewing Company — Where the Pilgrimage Begins

There are breweries you visit because they’re nearby. And then there are breweries you fly across the country for. Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, California, is firmly in the second category — and the people who make that trip know exactly why before they even land.Founded in 1997, Russian River built its reputation on the kind of beers that made craft beer obsessives lose their minds long before that was a mainstream concept. Pliny the Elder, their double IPA, became one of the most discussed beers in American history. It set a template for what a West Coast DIPA could be — clean, resinous, aggressively hopped yet balanced, with zero filler. Even now, decades into the IPA revolution, Pliny holds up against anything brewed anywhere in the world.But the brewery’s deeper legacy might be its barrel-aged and wild ale program. Beers like Supplication (a brown ale aged in Pinot Noir barrels with cherries) and Consecration (a dark ale in Cabernet barrels with currants) demonstrated that American craft brewers could produce world-class sour and wild ales — not just approximate them. These are beers that take years to make and reward patient drinkers with extraordinary complexity.The Santa Rosa taproom runs a famously long line on weekends. It’s worth every minute of it. Their second location in Windsor offers a bit more breathing room. Either way, come hungry — the food is as serious as the beer.📍 Santa Rosa + Windsor, California🍺 Don’t miss: Pliny the Elder, Supplication, Blind Pig IPA⭐ Known for: West Coast IPAs, barrel-aged wild ales🌐 russianriverbrewing.comIf you’ve never had Pliny the Elder fresh from the source, you don’t yet know what a double IPA can be. Make the trip.