Pliny the Younger was a lawyer, author and magistrate of Ancient Rome. He’s most famous for his accounts of the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD. Pliny’s uncle, aptly named Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. The Elder apparently also created the original botanical name for hops — “Lupus Salictarious” — which awesomely translates to “a wolf among scrubs,” named because of the way hops clung wildly to anything they could grab in the old Roman forests. The Russian River Brewing Co.’s Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Elder brands are both homages to these two historians, writers and naturalists. Pliny the Elder is a Double IPA and Pliny the Younger is a Triple IPA. With triple the amount of hops as a regular IPA, the latter is extremely difficult, time and space consuming and very expensive to make. Both are some of the most sought-after craft beers, and when they’re on tap for a few weeks, folks from all over the world flock to Santa Rosa, Calif., to get a taste of these two brews. Learn why in this excellent documentary above.
Documentary on Russian River Brewing’s Pliny the Younger and Elder
