Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

St. Rogue Red Ale

Brewery: Rogue Ales
Where: Newport, Oregon
Beer: St. Rogue Red Ale
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
IBU: 44 IBU
ABV: 5.1%

When I first started this blog and my beer tasting experiments, Amber Ales were one of my favorites.  I love the malty flavor of this style and I hadn't really experienced very many varieties of the style.  If I have learned anything about styles in the last year, it is simply that a style is nothing more than a general guideline for what a beer might be like.  It's also a set of rules to follow if you plan to make competition beer, but that's beside the point.  The taste and characteristics of American Amber / Red Ales has been quite diverse. 

Today's sample is St. Rogue Red Ale from Rogue.  As usual, I'm quite impressed with this beer.  St. Rogue is dry hopped, and this may be the first sampling I have had of a dry hopped red ale.  This beer is made up of a nice mix of 2-row and crystal malts followed by a nice helping of Chinook and Centennial hops to create great balance between the malt character and the citrus/floral characteristics of these hops. 

We're gonna chalk up another score for Rogue Ales with this beer.  I might just do a run on Rogues for the next few reviews as well.  I have at least five more sitting here that are dying to be opened...