St Rogue Dry Hopped Red Ale

The Dry Hopped Red Ale from Rogue is one that I have been trying to get my hands on for a while. But it's been out of stock for a while and I had started to feel a bit of a fool asking for it over and over at the bar with little success. However on a boozy Thursday night out with a jeweller, a radio newsreader and a couple of teachers my luck was finally in.

I guess the real question is was it worth the wait. To this day I'm not sure. It wasn't a bad beer, it might even be a really good beer (its won a lot of awards), but I don't think its my kind of beer. I found it to be too bitter. Almost like one of those really sour sweets you get where your cheeks get sucked in by the sourness. As I go on I enjoy it more but not enough to have made the wait worthwhile. 3 out of 5

Sierra Nevada Stout

Second up in my Sunday afternoon drinking is the stout from the Sierra Nevada. Now I have had their pale ale a fair few number of times, you get it on draught in a number of places around Birmingham, and think its a great beer.

Nik joined me in having a stout and on poring it looked like a stout, thick and black. On tasting it starts with quite a nice deep flavour which gives way to that common kind of coffee burnt flavour I associate with all stouts. Not really my cup of tea 2.5 out of 5.

Raging Bitch - Flying Dog

So this is the final beer on the list from the Flying Dog Brewery. I have really enjoyed their offerings. I ordered it hoping to regain some credibility after the coconut fiasco. The bottle had the normal flying dog anarchic artwork and the description on the side read Belgian Style IPA. Now I don't know all that much about brewing history but I thought that IPAs were British beers, brewed nice and strong to survive the long sea journey to India were British soldiers were eagerly waiting to get wasted. Not sure what Belgium has to do with anything.

The beer was nice, very bitter. At first it almost gave that citric acid/sour sweet effect were I could feel my cheeks being sucked into my face. This sounds unpleasant but the actual flavour and aroma of the beer helped to balance the bitterness. Overall a quality beer. 4 out of 5.

Dead Guy Ale - Rogue

Having dealt with the trauma of the Floris Chocolat it was time to have a proper beer. And for that proper beer I selected the Dead Guy Ale from the Rogue Brewery. It comes to me from Newport Oregon and having read their website, it seems to have quite a pedigree.

On tasting it was alright, without being anything memorable. A perfectly ordinary ale without anything to special to mention about it. I guess it must be even less than average because it comes so quickly after the Chocolat and so should taste amazing by comparison. Maybe the Chocolat ruined beer for me. 3 out of 5.