Rogue Smoke Ale

Brewed by Rogue Ales
Style: Smoked
Newport, Oregon USA

Minimal head on this cloudy dark orange. Hop and smoke aroma. Trouble finding any malt, itself, tones at all. The fire place smelling beer revealed a robust flavor. "Mesquite" or "Barbeque" flavors abound. Best drank in Texas is my guess. Good substitute for dry ribs (flavor wise). Very good, but not my style - tastes so much like food to me.

From a 22 oz. distinctive Rogue brown bomber bottle with a blurb and info about the ale on side of the bottle. Made a good appearance, poured as stated, an orange hued amber with a nice sized, foamy pale tan head that slowly reduced to a sticky thin lacing. Had a good smoky aroma, to my nose, a smoky troutiness and a subtle charcoalness. Good carbonation and a smoky, textured, smooth medium bodied mouth feel, good drinkability. Very tasty, a big velvety meaty smokiness, hints of a sweet caramel maltiness, a buried, dry Pacman yeastiness, a smoked woodiness, traces of a peppery hoppiness and a dry, smoky finish with a lingering sweet, smoky alcohol presence in the palate, delicious.

Very smoky – made to resemble a German Rauchbier, and I think they have succeeded. Not your everyday tipple, but give it a try. A sweet and fruity taste, with both apple and apricot elements and a strong malt character, too. Enough hoppy bitterness, but all this is nearly overpowered by the smoked malt. A complex beer.

Dark amber with light haze. Sour aroma of wood smoke and caramel. Full body with creamy, caramelly malts. Light smoke hangs around but doesn’t say anything. A smoked beer that doesn’t taste like it wants to be a smoked beer. And what would the point of that be?

Poured a dark cloudy orange brown with little in the form of a head. Plenty of salty smokey bacon in the aroma of course, but little else could be discerned. Flavour profile was ok, but not great. However, the palate was pleasingly full.

A fairly weak offering in general, especially when compared to the traditional rauchbiers from Schlenkerla. Somewhat smokey with little depth--virtually no hops character and a thin malt profile.

Smells like a big ol’ country ham biscuit. Cloudy, brown (Early American woodstain) colored with a beady white head. I really am getting annoyed with the Rogue labels - I like the paint, I hate the subjects. Buffered tanginess, astringency up front and in the back, the smoke ends up tasting a little artificial, although it appears that they’re drawing flavor directly from smoked malts. The only big flaw is that it’s a shade underbittered. Mostly dry, a little fruity tartness in there. The dryness and the smoke makes me really want to try this out with turkey. Finish is only mildly cloying. Pretty good, just a little disappointing.

At first all I could taste was smoke. Then, as I got used to the flavor I am unfamiliar with, it backed off and really let the malt through. Ity ended up a sweet, malty beer with a dominant caramel malt character. There was a touch of herbal noble hops in there, but not much (not enough). It seems like the smoke substitutes for the hops, providing the contrast to the malt. While I like the caramel malt flavor as well as the smoke, the problem is that the smoke doesn’t balance the mat sweetness like hops do. Instead it seems to sit right on top of the malt. The finish ends up being too sweet. Also a bit empty on the back end where the hops would be. I never thought I’d say this about a Rogue beer, but what this really needs is some more hops.