Rogue FestiveAle

Brewed by Rogue Ales
Style: Saison
Newport, Oregon USA

Pours a cloudy golden color with light white head. Smells of sweet ginger. Very carbonated. A little thin and quick finishing. Seems like I’ve had a lot of these saisons recently. They go down well but I prefer a darker beer in the winter.

Bottle poured orange amber with a good head and lacing. Aroma of spice, oranges, citrus. Flavor is a bit sweet with spice ,citrus and yeast. Not bad.

copper pour, slight haze, white head. earthy, burnt nuts, spice, ginger, pils aroma. slightly mettalic. big carbonation. very fresh, earth, wheat, ginger, tart, mild malts, almost a white wine taste. very interesting. the carbonation is over the top.

Beer is a clear medium amber with a huge, frothy, off-white, mostly and rapidly diminishing head. Residuals look like particulates on the surface. Big first impression on the nose! It smells like buttery (not buttery in the DMS way, but in the creamy way), decadent pastries! Count me in! The aroma is malty with light notes of toasted grain, buttery shortbread cookie, pound cake; Hoppy with a moderate herbal note;Yeasty with heavy notes of sourdough bread dough; Miscellaneous notes of moderate green apple, sage, oregano, orange zest, tamed pineapple, spicy alcohol, perhaps a trace of cinnamon. The flavor is moderately sweet, moderately bitter/dry, lightly acidic with an average-length lightly bittersweet, moderately warm finish. The body is medium, the texture is velvety and the carbonation is lively. In the end, it’s a bit dark in appearance and missing a lot of the funk of it’s Belgian-born cousins, but still fairly compelling and yummy.

22oz bottle: Solid hazy amber color, nearly opaque when held to light, with a small eggshell head that has good retention. The aroma is spicy hops, yeast, bready malt, sour orange, bitter herb, and just a hint of a sharp bitterness. Taste is fruity yeast for a quick instant, then spicy/floral hops, earthy malt, bread, dough, and wheat. Finishes medium dry, light on the palate, with spicy clove and a hint of esters alongside the bitter herbs. Medium bodied, medium carbonation. I thought it was a solid beer, though it seemed like the spices *might* have been used to cover up for a non-traditional yeast that didn’t quite produce the flavors in your average saison...but what do I know. If that is the case, so what? It wouldn’t be the first saison to do it.

Lots of foam, Pale yellow, smells a little like malt liquor. SMells like corn. Tastes like saison though. Flavor is lemon zest, lime, some grapefruit, some apple. Lots of carbonation, lots of fizz but is thin underneath.

Bottle. Poured a cloudy amber with a decent sized white head that mostly lasted and left great lacing. The aroma was a little weird; spices, fruits, a little citrus, maybe some perfume. The flavor did not get much better. A unique mix of spices and a yeast background. Very dry with very lively carbonation that takes away from the flavor. I think this is the first Rogue that I’ve had that I can honestly say I will not get again.

Faint aroma of yeast, malt, grass and honey. Gold and crystal clear through the glass. Small layer of fizy foam. The drink is heavily malted and intensly dry. Flavor is bitter and sort of bland.