Rogue Brewery in Newport, OR

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that Rogue is one of our favorite breweries at BarBEERians. Considering that we’ve reviewed six of their beers already, more than any other brewery, and that we’ve almost always liked the results, we’ve often been in the mood for finding new Rogue selections and adding another to the list of great beers. So when a limited-release offering from Rogue shows up on the shelves, it immediately becomes a beer that needs to be sampled. And so it goes with Rogue Chatoe Rogue First Growth Dirtoir Black Lager. It has a ridiculously long name that essentially means that its ingredients are all locally grown and it’s certified something by the something commission or something. Usually this stuff sounds really nice, but might not mean a whole lot (but I’ve gone on that rant before). Either way, this Schwarzbier style is one that I haven’t had a lot of, so I knew Rogue could do it justice. However, all good things must come to an end.

Just cracking the top of the bottle made me reconsider what I was about to get myself into. When I read on the label that this fancy Dirtoir Black Lager was indeed, well, a black lager, I was expecting a tame and slightly dark water to pour out. But the smell was strong with coffee notes, and after falling into the glass, this beer was clearly not what I expected. This sucker was muddy and reasonably thick with a head that’s darker than most stouts I dive into. The smell was sweeter than the initial wafts of bitter coffee, with touches of sweet chocolate tickling the olfactory sense. The first sip left a sour taste, though. Literally. The front notes of this beer were just off from the beginning. A slightly off-kilter, clunky, watered-down bitter beer taste scraped against the tongue for the first few seconds before finally getting pounced on by a dry and roasted malt profile. Not exactly the kind of beer that begs for more sips. Throughout the remainder of the glass, the flavor didn’t really change all that much, with maybe the sour taste and awkward hop notes disappearing just a bit, but in general, this beer wasn’t the most desirable to get through.

This is certainly a beer where the bite was worse than the bark. Based on the color and smell alone, I was expecting a truly astounding schwarzbier. However, what I got was a slightly ill-conceived rendition of the European style that still has some obvious rounding-out to do. It might be highly drinkable if you’re a fan of the style and can stomach the weirder sour-bitter flavor near the front but for me, this just didn’t quite work. Sometimes, a special edition beer is a good thing–you won’t have to see it around for very long.