Brews from the Crypt

Posted on June 27, 2010 Bren

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The taste of rot and decay has never been so well bottled until Rouge brewery decided to plop out their ever nauseating version of a Maibock. Now for those of you new to the beer world, a Maibock is a darker, higher alcohol, hoppy bock, originally reserved for the month of May ( hence the prefix of Mai). If you want to know more about Bocks and the wonderful world of craft beers, I highly suggest you check out The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer, by Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune. Anyways, enough shamelessly plugging a great book, lets get back to the dead guy at hand. As I was kindly saying, Rouge Brewery, a well respected craft brewery from the great state of Oregon, did not quite get it right with this funky brew.

1. Taste- Umm… MALT with a hint of MALT, and a smack of Hops with a aftertaste of bitter. They really knew how to name this funky mess because after sucking this brown brew down you feel like you have just guzzled the goop left over from an exhumed grave. Sorry to say this one is far from balanced and unless you have a strong pallet for the bitter and brash you’re probably not going to be too fond of this harsh ale, therefore it gets a 2 out of 5.

2. Texture- The texture of this zombie brew was well, rather like a zombie, sluggish, lingering, viscus, and sticks with you till you chop its damn head off with a better tasting beer. Unfortunately the beer had a rather low carbonation level, which would have helped lighten the beer a little. Perhaps it would have been better on tap but something tells me it would still leave you with a funky film on your chomps, thus it soundly deserves a 2.5 out of 5 for texture.

3. Appearance- Again following the dead guy theme, this beer had a very earthy brown color to it. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything really special about how this brew looked, it’s a darker ale, so it looked like a darker ale. Going on about the lack of carbonation, it could have used a bigger head, which may have released a little more of its earthy hoppy aroma and lightened its texture, but aside from that it look fine to me so I’ll give it a 3.5 out of 5.

4. Aroma- It was like a sucker punch of hops to the olfactory senses! As I stated earlier, this beer is far from balanced and that really came through with its hop happy stank. Given that one’s taste is primarily influenced by your sense of smell, this earthy mess really gives you a solid warning as to what your are about to imbibe in. Trust me, take heed of that warning and run for the hills because this zombie is out for brains and taste buds! 2 out of 5 for this funky skunk!

5. User Friendliness- Okay unless you’re going to a goth convention where the term dead gives every pale faced morbid member a stiffy, I wouldn’t take this beer anywhere! It has a cool looking label, which is how it traps its victims, but once you pop open that top around friends you will quickly be identified as having the plague and quarantined. It really doesn’t have any bromance factor, and given that it’s a Maibock, a beer designed for the merry month of May and the celebration of surviving another winter, this beer does more to remind you of those you have lost over the past few frigid months than lift your spirits and make you think of the wonderful warm months to come. 1.5 out of 5 for this brews bromance factor.

So I think I have thoroughly bashed in the head of this zombie brew with a cricket bat, so lets look at the stats.

dead guy growler 200x300 Brews from the Crypt