Rhubarb Schmubarb
Rogue Ales

 

From tasting notes 5/10/20

Appearance - Pours slightly hazy and orange-ish in color, off-white finger width head that hangs for a little while before dying to a thin, broken layer of suds. A handful of small, broken lines and tiny spots make up the lacing.

Smell - Fair tartness and sweetness on the nose, with noticeable rhubarb and strawberry.

Taste - Fair balance between the strawberry and rhubarb. Mild bitterness mid-taste, then dies down. Finish is a fair balance of the fruity sweetness and tartness, and a touch of the balancing, grass-like bitterness.

Mouthfeel - Light in body with slightly tingly carbonation. Slick, easy drinker before a semi-dry finish.

Overall - Good brew. Nice balance of the sweet, tart and slight bitterness. Better than the Great Divide Straw/Rhub brew I had a few months back.

Tastes like a mix between a lambic and a sour ale. Solid brew. Sweet but not sickly. Semi sweet, semi tart. Not bitter. Well carbonated but its not overwhelming. Light body and fizzy mouthfeel.

 

A - Opaque muted pink/red color with thin dense white lacing. The pour looks exactly like a fruit juice from Tropicana.

S - Aroma is sweet with strawberry and rhubard being the dominate player with some light cereal grain undertones.

T - Rhubarb and strawberry up front with rhubarb being the dominate profile. Midway through some cereal grain undertones come to the forefront with rhubarb, strawberry, and rhubarb acidity.

M - Thick body with a fruit juice-like consistency on the texture.

O - Not a fan of the residual grain flavor, but this beer is worthy of a higher score than the current (81).

Fuck that's good!

L: pours a rusty brown orange that will head up full and thick if you pour aggressively. I started my pour from a 16oz can into a Magic Hat tulip glass conservatively and, disappointed with the thin appearances, ramped things up from Ronald Reagan pour level to Bernie Sanders on 50mg of Adderall. It headed up nicely, but the head dissipated quickly leaving the handsome orangey rust color liquid with a sad layer of film that reminded me of brewing kombucha.

S: this stuff smells like pie and sour candy. Like a strawberry rhubarb pie that got turned into fruit leather or something. The malt makes an appearance on the nose for a moment like a friend borrowing money.

T: fuck that's delicious! The malt bill backs up the sour, tart berry flavors and the happily prominent rhubarb in a way that can only be matched by Liam Neeson playing sidekick for Jean Claude Van Damme. Well... maybe not that good, butit's good! I think the taste would be better if accented by more yeasty funk!

F: a bit thin. I was hoping for this to he like a Framboise with some balls but it turned out to have the mouthfeel of a malty hard seltzer. Not crunchy or chewy or bready or funky or thick or frothy. Just a bit too thin for my liking.

O: fuck that's delicious! This is one I can definitely rely on as the fruit component of a beer tour, but I might just as easily turn to a bottle of Lindeman's Strawberry Framboise.

 

 

Hahaha! The name reminds me of a trailer for the new FX series, "Cake" in which a patient on the couch at his psychiatrist's office is asked to free-associate words. He responds by simply appending the prefix "sch-" to every word! Hahaha. This is an entirely appropriate beer to be added to The CANQuest (tm) tonight since it is the ocCAnsion of the 2019 NL Wild Card game. How so? In baseball, a "rhubarb" is an argument or fight between players and/or the umpire, sometimes involving the manager!

From the CAN: "Ale Brewed with Strawberries and Rhubarb"; "Dare*Risk*Dream"; "Dedicated to Farmers and Gardeners"; "On our farm in Independence, Oregon, we grow marionberries, pumpkins, honey and 10 varieties of hops. We also tend the 'Revolution Garden' where we grow experimental crops for our brewers in Newport. Inspired by the strawberries and rhubarb from our garden, our brewers created this tart fruit ale perfect for summer enjoyment."; "Pair it with[:] Pepper Jack[,] Seared Ahi Tuna[,] Strawberry Rhubarb Pie"; "8 IBU"; "8.7 SRM".

I beCAN by Crack!ing open the vent. I was unsure how to CANtinue, since earlier reviews mentioned an inherent lack of clarity. I went with my usual slow, gentle C-Line Glug, but when it became obvious that clarity was not a CANcern, I let it free-flow. This resulted in the formation of just over a finger of fizzy, foamy, rocky, tawny head with modest retention, falling away into wisps. Color was a turbid, cloudy Deep-Amber/Light-Copper to Copper (SRM = > 13, < 17). Nose was mainly strawberry, but not as swet as that might suggest. I CANnot say that I would have guessed "Rhubarb", but it was definitely NOT simply strawberry. As an adult, strawberries have become my favorite fruit. As a kid, it was blueberries, then peaches, red raspberries and strawberries. Not any more. Strawberries have taken the lead in my advancing age. The taste was also definitely strawberry cut with a pleasant tartness. I have not had a strawberry-rhubarb pie since my paternal grandmother passed in 1994, but she was the one famous for making them. This beer brought back pleasant memories & while I would NEVER eat rhubarb by itself (they gave Elementary School kids it as a snack a couple/few years ago! Yuck.), this worked well as a foil to the sweetness. Finish had a tangy tartness to it that lingered well past the swallow. Yum.

 

16 oz can with a canning date of 16 April 2019 served in a lager glass on 16 July 2019.
Pours with a murky, orange-brown body topped by a very good off-white head.
Aroma: some bright fruit notes including strawberry along with faint baked bread and spicy hops, some vegetative notes (from rhubarb?), and a clear suggestion of sour fruit.
Flavor: more tart and bitter than sweet, but some strawberry sweetness is evident. Bready. Overly bitter finish.
Feel: medium-full body.

On draught at Frontier Brewing and Taproom.

Pours a hazy orange with an inch of foam, lacing is good.

I get a semi sweet and tart fruity nose, I guess it's the Rhubarb; I haven't tasted that stuff since I was a kid in Connecticut.

Semi sweet and semi tart taste, quite nice really, agrees with my palate. I get near zero bitterness, it is just fruity and delicious.

Body is fairly light and the carbonation is proper.

Good brew.

 

 

 

 

 

This tastes like a Saison with a little fruit flavoring. It's that Cream of Wheat taste. Actually the fruit is quite life-like, though the starring ingredients don't come to mind. No hops, apparently, but there is that bit of yeasty scratch. Pleasant sudsy mouthfeel.

It's quite drinkable with a nice touch of sweetness that tastes like malt. And a bit of tart fruit at the finish. From the 16 oz can purchased at a beer novelty store in Washington.