Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp 2014: Yvan The Great Belgian-Style Blonde (brewed with Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, California)

Brewed By: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California 
Purchased: Single 12oz bottle from the 2014 Beer Camp bought at Jewel-Osco in Chicago, IL; 2014 (PKG 06/02/14)
Style/ABV: Belgian-Style Blonde Ale, 6.3%

Reported IBUs: 50

What is Beer Camp? It is Sierra Nevada's celebration of craft beer and the numerous breweries across America that make that craft beer. For 2014, Sierra Nevada collaborated with 12 different breweries to make 12 different beers. They also have a Beer Camp Across America Beer Festival, which will stop at seven different cities and feature many different breweries and beers.

About Sierra Nevada:

Sierra Nevada are one of the big players in craft brewing, and one of the first craft breweries to arrive on the craft beer scene. If you check out their history page, you will see that founder Ken Grossman began his quest to build a brewery in 1976. In 1980, Ken Grossman and co-founder Paul Camusi brewed their first batch of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. According to Wikipedia, Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the second best selling craft beer behind Boston Lager. Sierra Nevada is the sixth largest brewing company in the United States as well, cranking out over 750,000 barrels in 2010. For more info, check out their website.

The Yvan The Great Belgian-Style Pale Ale is a collaboration with the brown bears that hunt salmon in the great Russian River. Of all the beers in this mix-pack, this was by far the one I was the most excited about. The bottle reads: "As longtime friends, Russian River brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo and our own Brian Grossman are no strangers to brewing experiments. For this collaboration, they honored their friend and renowned Belgian brewer Yvan De Baets. This Belgian-American mash-up harmoniously blends Yvan's penchant for yeast with Vinnie and Brian's affinity for hops."

Yvan The Great Belgian-Style Blonde

This one is easy to describe in appearance: it pours out a hazy lemon-yellow color, with a juicy and hazy body. My pour yielded one finger of white, Saison-esque head that gently faded into a nice sea foam/cauldron effect. Small, modest streams of carbonation pepper the glass.

The aroma here features big Belgian yeast. This is big, earthy, and super raw, with lots of Belgian yeast, raw dough, barnyard, wheat, lemons, white sugar, green bananas, and big black pepper. The Belgian yeast and doughy notes stand out. This smells pretty damn good for a Belgian Blonde. 

I'd say this is somewhere between a wheat beer and a Saison and a Belgian Pale Ale....I'm getting cracker notes, biscuit, wheat, bubblegum, black pepper, coriander/lemon, clove, and earthy straw, grass, and wheat. There's nice bitterness at work here as well, with earthy Belgian yeast.

This is medium-bodied, if not light-full. Palate depth is refined and good....complexity is lacking. This is refreshing and drinkable. It's hard to rate as a one-off, especially in this compilation package. What do I compare this to? As this warms up, some candi sugar notes emerge. Up front: candy sugars, wheat, lemon, Belgian funk; that rolls into bubblegum, wheat, hop balance; the back end is clove, black pepper, biscuit, bread. This finishes with wheat....it's alright. 

Rating: Above-Average (3.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a super, super Light Above-Average on this beer. The execution pushes it over-the-top, especially for a boring-ass Belgian Blonde/Pale Ale. Despite my favorable rating for the style, I found this beer and Three Floyd's Chico King to be generally disappointing in the 2014 Beer Camp. There's just so much potential here...ah well. This is solid, and would pair well with pizza or white pasta or something of that ilk. I'm a fan, but it's hard to justify this beer when you have nearby (to the Midwest) breweries like Solemn Oath, Penrose, and even Goose Island.

Random Thought: All the Beer Camp 2014 needed was a single sour. In addition to Russian River's clout as a world class brewer, the description on the bottle of this beer summons the phrase, "brewing experiments." For future reference, please do not use that term unless you brew something that is a brewing experiment.