A quick story from a friend of mine who lives near Santa Rosa...
Members of his local homebrew club all began talking (via Facebook) about how a certain homebrew shop in town was able to score a 5 gallon keg of Younger. That shop had posted an "ad" on Facebook telling guys to be at the shop early a few Saturdays back if they wanted to be sure to score a 8 oz pour. Indeed, a bunch of guys were there for the tapping, which led to an onslaught of comments on Facebook, all stating just how amazing Younger was. Well, later that afternoon, one of the guys from the homebrew shop serving the beer informed everyone that the beer was not "genuine," but rather a clone of of (I believe) Vinnie's Blind Pig, or maybe it was Elder. Either way, as soon as that post went up, another onslaught of Facebook posts came, only this time folks were making comments like, "Yeah, it really wasn't all that special." C'mon!
My point here is this: hype has a huge impact on perception. I'd be willing to bet if I drank a glass of Younger without knowing it was Younger, it'd taste just like any other good IIPA. Russian River makes f*cking awesome beer, and they're also a brilliant business... brewing an IIPA once per year, charging a lot for it... they know people get worked up into a frenzy about this stuff. I wonder how big of a kick they get out of watching all these people do so on a yearly basis???