Tag Archives: rogue

Santa’s Private Reserve Ale

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When Brian, the proprietor of my local beer specialty store down the street told me about Rogue Brewery’s Santa’s Private Reserve Ale, he described it like this. “I haven’t had it, but I’ve heard it’s like their Dead Guy Ale, but a little maltier.” That’s why I like Brian, even when he hasn’t had a beer, he still has something to say.

Usually I am wary of Christmas Specials in general. Just because you put Santa on something doesn’t make it any better- and it usually just makes it more expensive. But I think it is different with beer. In the beer world, the holidays just mean your favorite breweries are now mixing new recipes, hoping you will enjoy a new offering that will help you get through another holiday with the relatives. So with beer, I always look forward to what they are going to mix up come November.

Santa’s Private Reserve is a double-hopped Red. It has a nice, deep red color. Brian was also right, the malt comes through a bit more than in the Dead Guy. But comparing the two isn’t fair, as Dead Guy is a German Maibock and Santa is a Red Ale. In fact, it is a variation of their Saint Rogue Red, but with some interesting differences, such as being double-hopped, and a mystery addition of a hop called “Rudolph”, which is cool. Maybe we haven’t heard of it because the other hops won’t let it join in their drinking games.

Rogue makes such great beer that any addition to their extensive selection is always welcome as far as I’m concerned. Santa’s Private Reserve is one seasonal selection you won’t regret grabbing. That is the beauty of beer—unlike a fruitcake, or a sweater with an enormous snowflake on it—you are going to consume it gladly. Happy drinking.

Rogue Brutal Bitter

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Beer-a-Day #364

An Imperial bitter with exotic traditional floor malts, citrusy, hoppy flavor, stupendous hop aroma.

I don’t think this is a commentary on the year just ending, but Freud would probably have something to say about it.

Orangey with a chill haze. Big citrusy hops aroma. Fairly big hops, but lighter than something that proclaims itself as an “Imperial” anything. It’s good.

Rogue Brutal Bitter

Rogue Morimoto’s Imperial Pilsner

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I found a hidden gem in an offbeat section of Troy, New York: DeFazio’s Pizza.

I had stumbled upon the place using Yelp (or some other such app) on my iPhone. I was very skeptical at first having never heard of it before yet it had great reviews online. It also noted it as a BYOB. So, I gave them a call to check them out and they were very nice, suggested reserving us a table and said that we could bring our own booze. Perfect! I was ready for an adventure and I wanted to try the Rogue’s Morimoto Imperial Pilsner Al gave me.

It was a bit hard to find on a rainy Saturday evening, but I was not deterred. The place was small. Very small. The décor was…scant. My wife said the parking was scary. But they were very nice, gave us personalized service, and the pizza was high quality gourmet. We were going to the theater that evening and there were a few other people we suspected had the same agenda. Others brought several bottles of wine and looked like they were going to make it their entire evening.

My biggest complaint would be that they didn’t provide glasses, so I had to have my pilsner in a plastic cup. But that didn’t ruin it for me, nor the beer. This pilsner was in-your-face hoppy. This is basically an IPA brewed as a lager. But it also had good depth, meaning it wasn’t just hops, with a strong body of malted barley to back it up. Excellent all around; thanks Al.


Rogue American Amber Ale

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Rogue American Amber AleBeer-a-Day #185

July 4th, American Independence Day. What better way to celebrate than with an American-brewed craft beer?

From the Rogue website:

Tasting Notes:

Tawny in color, with a coffee aroma, tight head and a delicate roasted malt accent. Generous use of hops and a smooth finish.

9 Ingredients:
Malts: Northwest Harrington and Klages, 95-115 and 135-165 Crystal.
Hops: Kent Golding and Cascade.
Yeast & Water: Rogue’s Pacman Yeast and Free Range Coastal Water.

Specs:
13º PLATO
53 IBU
73.1 AA
33º Lovibond

Well I certainly don’t disagree with their description. That’s darn good. An appropriate accompaniment to our neighbors’ fireworks show.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale

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Rogue Dead Guy AleBeer-a-Day #160

In the style of a German Maibock, using our proprietary Pacman ale yeast. Deep honey in color with a malty aroma and a rich hearty flavor.

Wow, I haven’t had one of these in ages. Probably not since the inception of Hop Talk.

It’s pretty. And it’s malty but a good balance of bitterness to counteract the sweetness. I like it.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale

Ron on Porter

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I cracked open my bottle of Rogue Imperial Porter and served it with my NY Strip Steak smothered in caramelized onions & mushrooms. I had purchased this beer as part of my search for a favorite porter. Recently I noted that Victory’s Storm King Stout was closer to the porter I am seeking than any other porter I’ve tried (from a bottle).  Rogue is one of my favorite craft brewers and I was hoping that at $15 a bottle, this would be the one.

But it wasn’t.rogue-imperial-porter

Once again, the primary flavor characteristic came from roasted/burnt barley. You CANNOT taste any malt sweetness behind the charcoal and it ruins what ever hop presence is there. This harsh bitterness is not what I’m looking for in a porter. From Rogue…

This is a huge mouthful of malt and hops. It has notes of bitter rich chocolate and hints of tar. A new hop called Summit was used to give it the perfect hop balance. This porter is the creme de la creme.

I started thinking to myself, I must be wrong, even though we already established that I can’t. Maybe I’m just misinformed… so I decided to look it up.

Robust Porter
Robust porters are black in color and have a roast malt flavor but no roast barley flavor. These porters have a sharp bitterness of black malt without a highly burnt/charcoal flavor. Robust porters range from medium to full in body and have a malty sweetness. Hop bitterness is medium to high, with hop aroma and flavor ranging from negligible to medium. Diacetyl is not acceptable. Fruity esters should be evident, balanced with roast malt and hop bitterness.

Brown Porter
Brown porters are mid to dark brown (may have red tint) in color. No roast barley or strong burnt/black malt character should be perceived. Low to medium malt sweetness is acceptable along with medium hop bitterness. This is a light to medium-bodied beer. Fruity esters are acceptable. Hop flavor and aroma may vary from being negligible to medium in character.

So I’m not misinformed, either.

Now, you can’t be wrong either… you might like this.  You might like to just add some ash from the fireplace, too. Why don’t you add some smoke flavor to it while you are at it. (Check back for my review of Stone’s Smoked Porter for the upcoming Session.)

I don’t like it. I like it bitter from hops and from dark malt, but it still must primarily taste like beer.

Rogue Imperial Porter is not a bad beer. The body, lacing, aroma and quality is top notch; I just don’t love whatever style of beer this is. And Rogue is not the only one.

IPA Bake Off

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Back in October we tried an Octoberfest bake off (a taste test) and it wasn’t that successful. Nice.. not thrillin’, but nice. So when a different group of my friends suggested a blind IPA taste testing, I wasn’t very optimistic; but of course I was game anyway.

Surprise! Not only was it a great evening, the winners and losers made it all that much more interesting. We scored them differently than I had done previously, not just on an overall impression like the unofficial Hop-Talk rating system is built upon, but rather a much more detailed method using a standard beer judging sheet. It is based on an overall score of 50 points made up of several categories.

scoring chart

Here are the results. I rounded the averages of the four of us playing judge…

ipa-taste-test
My comments after the tasting go like this…
Rogue - Yes, it stood alone at the top.
Stone – One of my favorite IPA’s. My score for it probably would have been higher but I hadn’t just taken a break in tasting for a slice of Buffalo Pizza… probably not the best idea and probably affected the overall result.
Butternut – We were all surprised by this one, but me most of all as I really don’t like Butternut’s other brews. I’m going to have to go back for this one.
Middle Ages – While we all know and love this IPA, none of us expected it to rate so high. Glad to see it up there.
Sam Smith – I nailed the import.

I had a great time doing this… I don’t know if the flavors varied that much greater than the octoberfest styles, or if the method in judging was what made it so much better. In any case, the casual nature and long evening in which we took to do it was one for the books.

Special thanks to our servers, Ellie & Katie, and their scientific strategy to organization assuring accurate test results. (We will excuse the Yuengling Porter incident.)

Rogue Morimoto Imperial Pilsner

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Sometimes I just have to try a beer based on the packaging. Morimoto Imperial Pilsner from Rogue is onesuch. It comes in a lovely, resealable ceramic bottle. Add to that my eldest daughter is really getting into all things Japanese and urged me to buy it.

It also turns out to have been on Ron’s Wish List last year.

I actually bought this several weeks ago. I just haven’t had a good opportunity to have 750ml of a 8.8% ABV beer.

From Rogue’s website:

Style: Pilsner

Food Pairing: Seafood, Poultry

Tasting Notes:
Golden in color with a dry hop floral aroma and intense hop bitterness supported by a big malty backbone which culminates into a hedonistic mouthful.

Ingredients:
100% French Pilsner. 100% Sterling. Czech Pils Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water.

Specs:
18º PLATO
74 IBU
80 AA
16º Lovibond

I like the idea of a “hedonistic mouthful”.

Light amber in color with a cream colored head. Seems a bit hazy. Lots and lots of spicy hoppiness in the aroma. Body is surprisingly full, and there’s plenty more spice in the flavor. It’s oddly smooth with a bite at the same time. Interesting.

Hopheads would love this.

It has quite a kick. If you drink the whole 1 pint 10 fluid ounces yourself, plan on not going anywhere.

Pretty good, though. I rather liked it.