Rogue FestiveAle

Brewed by Rogue Ales
Style: Saison
Newport, Oregon USA

Pours a amber colour with a white head. lacing is good, but what does that matter these days eh? Taste was sour/bitter honey and citrus. Bland saison at best, this was not what I had expected.

Draft. Dark amber color, will dripping head. Aroma of wheat, alcohol, and malt. Falvours of honey and some bitterness, light fruit flavour.

Pours a golden honey color. After the Santa’s Private Reserve this was just as hoppy but with Christmas aroma, and spiciness to it, and maybe a little less bite, but stilly very hoppy.

Amber color with a white head. Decent representation of co2. Murky due to either incompetence on my part or some extry chill haze. Aroma is like candy – sweet, but not complex. Flavor has a sweet start but stops there. Unremarkable middle and a flat dry finish. Plate is medium bodied and creamy. Improves as it warms, but this Belgian style doers not compare to most Belgians.

22 oz bottle, from Bello Vino in Ann Arbor, MI (Dec 2005). Massive but fairly weak bubbly off-white head atop an oily, translucent orane-gold body....spicy-sweet aroma, more heavy on the sweet end of things, candied orange and ginger certainly make their presence known....the body, fairly sweet as well though there is a strong rough herbal component and lots of citric acid, so it’s never cloying in it’s honey-maple-fruitiness....the ginger hotness is present throughout, not overwhelming exactly but certainly too strong, and the body is too light and lacking in that earthy maltiness that I value so much in the best farmhouse ales...the finish is quite dry, acidic and bitter with a touch of metallic/mineral alkalinity....unbalanced and not terribly appealing, though not bad enough to be a drain pour. I suspect that this would improve with 6 months or a year, perhaps the flavors would gel a little better and the harshness recede...but I also wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Lots of head on this. Incredibly murky appearance. Looks a lot like apple cider. Smells like yeast and orange. Tastes similar. Very doughy and yeasty. (maybe you should try not to mix the yeast in this one) Orange and pepper. Surprisingly dry, given the lack of hops or bitterness. If you want to know what hops taste like, try an IPA; for malt, a scotch ale; and for yeast, try this. It’s not exact;y bad, but I prefer the other two.

Bottle. Pours a murky, dark copper color with a big, frothy, off-white head. Aroma is yeasty with a good deal of sulfur. Flavor is a train-wreck of spice, malt and yeast. Very lager-like in flavor. I don’t care for this much.

I love saisons, but I don’t even like this one. I realize that saisons can be all over th eplace, but this was hardly enjoyable to drink. I had a tough time placing the aroma, bbut finally settled on nutmeg, clove, and ginger. Decent creamy, off-white head with great lacing. Very lively carbonation and astringent finish overshadowed much of the beer.