Rogue Brewing Co. - Rogue Farms "Roguenbier" rye ale

Today's beer belongs to Rogue Brewing Company's "Rogue Farms" line - a line of beers that features organic, self-made beers made from ingredients grown from their own plantation. As you may recall, last September I reviewed another Rogue Farms ale and loved it. So when I saw this one the shelf - a rye ale, for which I have a weak spot - and I snatched it up. $8 at Whole Foods.

Rye ales are great. I'll soon be reviewing the king of rye ales - Boulevard's Smokestack Rye-on-Rye 2014 vintage - so in preparation, I decided to give the 5.5% ABV Roguenbier a spin. As you can see, it's made with Dream rye, Independent hops, and Dare & Risk malts. Apparently, according to the bottle, the first time Rogue Farms planted the Dream rye, it attracted a "wave of slugs" (their words) that ate the whole crop in 24 hours. That sounds pretty gross. Luckily, they kept the slugs at bay for the next crop, and here we have it, bottled and ready.

So here we go. Beer opened nicely with little carbonation hiss. The pour was smooth, with very little head. The eye is a chocolate brown. When held up to the light, it takes on an interesting caramel color. Hmm.

The beer had no serious nose at all. It was a little surprising, since I expected it to have a more powerful, hoppy rye smell to it. I dug into the beer and had a few sips followed by a gulp. It was surprising - the taste is thin, relatively flavorless, which some vague taste of roasted oats. Really nothing like I expected it to be.

As it opens up to the air, there's a bit more taste to it...some malty tastes. But it's still pretty sedated. But, there's nice lacing on the glass, so it's got that going for it.

In conclusion, this beer is kind of unimpressive. It's not bad, but I expected there to be much more taste packed in to the bottle. And although it's not actively awful, it's still not good enough to recommend. It's hard to even go more in-depth into the taste than I already have. There's just not much here! And that's frustrating, since Rogue is usually good about making their beers taste good.

You're much better served at that price point getting a bottle of Rogue's Chipotle Ale or perhaps a Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout. Both are much better than this.