Baron Rauchbier

Brewed by Baron Brewing & Lunar Brewing
Style: Smoked
Seattle, Washington USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Lager glass, Stein

This golden ale poured with nice off-white head, eliciting a sour smoky aroma. There is a thin caramel malt base that is not sufficient to support the smoky texture of a rauchbier. There is also a sourness that is completely out ao character for this style. I love rauchbier as a style, but this one left me wanting.

Pours a full bronze-amber glass with suitable head. Appealing smoky aroma, hits precisely the right pitch. Flavor profile benefits from a sturdy malt backbone off which the smoked woody flavors create a wonderful complexity. This paired excellently with a hearty chili though would surely be a go to beer for any grill-out. Easily the most enjoyable rauchbier I have sampled to date.

A typical pour still easily produces almost four-fingers of head in my 25cl tulip glass. The head is a pale, off-white color and forms a nicely textured surface and lots of lacing as it slowly recedes.. The beer is a clear, lightly red stained, dark gold color as it sits on my desk but shows a brilliantly clear, gold color when held up to the light (close to the color of Pilsner Urquell). The smoke is apparent as soon as I start to pour this beer as it lightly accents the surrounding atmosphere. Smoky smelling and quite dry, this beer doesn’t have the typical chewy, sometimes bready and sweet malt notes that many versions have. Because of this, the smoke is much more spicy here and even comes off as having some hints of plastic-phenolic notes towards the end. This definitely has a signature, beech wood smoke character to it.

Light, and dry up front, the beer actually tastes much like a dry Helles, though it doesn’t have the depth of malt character that a great example of that style has. The beer finishes with a smoky flavor that lingers on the tongue, but was not quite as prominent as the aroma would have suggested. The base malt character seems a bit washed out, and with a definite green apple note to it. Somehow this even seems to have a slight tartness to it. The smoke can get a bit too phenolic and sharp in the finish at times; the smoke really needs some other structured malt to balance it out.

Just too unbalanced, it is actually not that the smoke character is overwhelming, it is not and in fact I have had good beers with much more, it is the fact that the supporting malt character is so flabby. The malt just disappears and ends up being wan and cidery. Not horrible, but I was hoping for so much more.

Purchased: Liquid Solutions

Bottle from Liquid Solutions in Portland, OR. Hazy orange gold color with a nice white head. Aroma of smoked cheese. Yum. Near medium body with frothy carbonation. Flavor is a hint of sour over smoky malt. Smoked bread. Not so smoky as to overwhelm the beer. Good drink. Lots less expensive than flying to Germany.

Draught at Falling Rock Taphouse, Denver. Cloudy amber - white head. Smoke, classic bamberg, bread, caramel, smoke, light thin body, tar. Lovely - but a light thin body.

Beer tasted at mcbackus tasting. Pours gold with copper core and thin off white head. The aroma is tasty rauch malts that don’t go over board with bits of malt in the background. The taste is very much the same with up front and to the finish rauch malts. Mild maltiness rolls around in the background along with hints of caramel. Pretty straight forward rauch offering.

Pours an unclear orange with a very small white froth and some soda bubbles. Strong aroma of smoked ham. Tart and tangy flavor, sweet pale malts, candi sugar. A bit of smokey campfire and metallic bitterness shows in the finish. Corse carbonation. This beer doesn’t let you forget that it’s a lager.

Draught at Falling Rock. Hazy orange coloured with a small white head. Malty aroma of caramel with notes of rye bread and smoke. Smoky flavour of caramel, malts and bacon. Smoky finish.