Legal Beer

About a mile from work on my ride home today my bicycle decided the logical thing to do was to break its chain. Lovely. Luckily as I approached the four way stop there wasn’t a ton of traffic and I was able to Fred Flinstone to a stop with little fear.  I had just stopped at the liquor store and a bus had recently overtaken me prior to breaking my chain so I was very tempted to crack open a brew and wait for the next bus, unfortunately Minnesota laws don’t cater to that. Oh well at least we have a new amendment to a bill in the house HF546,  to allow for off-sale licensing of brewers between 3,500 and 7,000 BBL, give it your support! Fortunately my story continues positively, after fiddling with my bike for a while and waiting for the bus a friendly gentleman approached me and asked if I needed help. I told him the situation and he offered to give me a ride. After some nice conversation and a short drive to The Alt all was well thanks to some help and a shiny new chain that didn’t deserve the abuse of going on my dirty ass drivetrain. So time for some beer. Today I am enjoying a bottle of Dry Hopped St. Rogue Red Ale from the lovely Rogue brewers who hail from the land of Oregon. I first sampled this ale at the Rogue tasting hosted by The Four Firkins last month and was wonderfully satisfied so it only seemed logical to consume some more and give it a proper review.  This brew pours a hazy brown with red hints that is completely opaque brightening slightly when brought to light. This pour created over three fingers of frothy off white head that lingers for a number of minutes. I would suggest pouring this ale a bit carefully, this particular bottle foamed up as soon as I popped the cap (though previously none of the other bottles did). Aroma is sweet and malty but intensely hoppy with robust citrus and bitter notes. Flavor is very nice, obviously a seriously dry hopped ale. First comes the malt, largely sweet but hearty and nicely balanced by the bitter hops  that round off this brew. There are a number of citrus and floral hints  as well  but it is a bit hard to pick out individual flavors as this is such a full flavored ale, guess I need to drink more. The body is light for such a hoppy beer and the moutfeel is reasonably smooth. With a humble 5.1% ABV this is a wonderful choice when you want something immensely flavorful but not so strong it will knock you on your ass after a few. Though this is a rather hoppy ale and isn’t the best beer for those who do not enjoy bitter flavors the malt characters make this one delicious and nicely balanced Amber Ale. Anyone who enjoys a nicely hopped ale and doesn’t mind a decent amount of malt to compliment should absolutely try this beer. A perfect compliment to any spicy meal. Give it a shot and ride your bike.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Beer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.