Brewery: Rogue Brewery Newport, Oregon
Overview: Santa's Private Reserve Ale is, as Rogue describes it, a special over-hopped version of a red ale, with 10 ingredients: Malts: Great Western Harrington, Klages, Munich & Hugh Baird Carastan 30-37 & 13-17, Crystal 70-80. Hops: Chinook & Centennial.Yeast & Water: Rogue's Pacman Yeast and Free Range Coastal Water. Offered annually, I managed to score a bomber of last year's 2009 batch.
Aroma: Hops oh sweet hops. Grapefruit and some evergreen forest elements mixed in. Fresh.
Appearance: Amber with some orange and light red highlights. Large frothy tan head that sticks around and leaves substantial lace on glass.
Flavor: Big hop bitterness up front, with heavy roasted malt flavors adding to the bitter profile. Oddly enough, the malt cuts the bitterness if you hold in your mouth then it reappears as a clean hop bitterness in the finish. Frothy mouthfeel. No slickness. Some caramel undertones in there.
Overall Impression: This is most definitely the hophead's Christmas beer. With flavor purely resembling a hop-o-matic IPA, Santa's got a whole lot of Chinook and Centennial hops growing at the North Pole. This is an excellent beer, but it doesn't really fit the bill for me with regards to "Winter" beers, so I'd move it more into the specialty category. And if you happen to pick some up, you might consider saving a few bottles for summer, or toss it down with some spicy foods.
Vitals:
Style Specialty Beer
Price $5.99/22 oz. bottle
Found In Regional Liquor Store
Alcohol Content Not published
Availability Christmas season 2009
Bitterness 44 IBU
Rating: 90
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment