Valley Brew Cervesa Picosa Ahumada Roja

Brewed by Valley Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Stockton, California USA

Noogfest Four-O

Bottle, courtesy beerguy101. Pours a murky brownish color, with a thin white head, and nice lacing. Smoked malts strike the nose hard, with some plum maybe? Caramel lingers, too. First taste reveals a slight spicy feel and then WHAM, firey burn on the back of the tongue. Hops eventually come through after a few sips. Hard to drink easily, but the heat cools down after letting it sit for a little bit.

Thanks to beerguy101 for sharing at noogfest 2008. Wow! Great chipotle nose, nice heat, good bite in the finish. perfect w/ mexican food.

(Old rating discovered in a dusty pile of forgotten notes, and I wish the notes on this one were more complete.) Thanks to aspidites for this!. This is just a really nice red ale with a smoky nose and an understated chili spice finish. One of the few chili beers where the chili actually works WITH the beer. It would be nice if a few more brewers could do the same math.

Date: 07/24/2006
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting

amber, whispy beige head that swirels into creamy lace, malt aroma with a nice spicy edge, hot chili flavor on a dry smokey malt base, a balanced and smokey chipolte beer
-------- /> Date: 07/18/2007
Mode: bottle
Source: tasting
Score: 3.2 to 3.5

clear amber, sweet peppery aroma with a good balance between the strong pepper and some sweet caramel in the background, lots of pepper flavor, lingering heat, hint of sweet malt stays in the background, much more pepper than before

Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 7/10; Overall: 13/20
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Drinkability: 6/10
Score: **+/4

12oz handbottled by the man himself May 07, thanks Steve - First aroma I get is the bubblegum yeast I would expect from a Belgian dubble or quad. This is followed by some sweet caramel malt and finished with roasted peppers and smoke. Pours cloudy chipotle red with a huge head that quickly fades leaving good lacing. Something about the shade of red that I really like. Flavor is full of roasted peppers that pretty much overpower everything else. That’s ok with me since I love hot roasted peppers. The spiciness is there no doubt, but it isn’t "hot". Palate is spicy and dry, a little chalky actually. I had this with my burrito that also contained a lot of different peppers and it was great. It is truly amazing what talented brewers can do.

Malty aroma with smoked peppers. Low hop and yeast aroma. Reddish brown, clear color. Frothy head right out of the bottle that quickly settled to a thin off white head with moderate head retention and lacing. Malty start can’ not hold up to the hot pepper onslaught that washes over a low hop background. The hot pepper sensation ends fairly quickly and is quite pleasant! Medium light body, moderate carbonation with hot pepper finish. A very interesting beer!

Pours an amber color with an off white head. Aroma is very woody/smoky, and chillies. Flavor is lots of hot peppers, smoky, and a light bitter finish. The chillies cause a nice burn, overall not too bad would eat with some nice mexican food.

It didn’t come out of the bottle too well. Way too much foam and fizz. Eventually settled into a hazy amber. The aroma has a citric, slightly phenolic tartness...presumably what TAR alluded to has spent the subsequent five weeks becoming more pronounced as the beer has clearly continued fermenting. Underneath of that is a complex chile character punctuated by an insistent chipotle smokiness. Flavourwise...ok it’s got a lot of carbonation and some footy yeastiness, which definitely muddies things up a bit, especially the malts, which come of as a bland caramel-earth two tone. Then the chile steps forward, bringing again the complex chile of a proper mole oaxaqueño. There is lingering smokiness and some capsicum warmth at the end...mild but pleasant...I could go for more, personally. There’s some malt behind it...the earthy aspect of the malts is uninteresting of itself but plays well with the intense earthiness of the chiles. It’s a great mix of chiles - I appreciate this a LOT on that level - and it’s entirely possible the surrounding beer is well-thought-out but probably a bit too yeasty/overattenuated for its own good.