Juniper Rye
Court Avenue Brewing Company

A- Dirty, hazy, no head, med. brown. But I kinda expected that.

S- I actually enjoyed smelling this beer! It had a crisp and spicy snap in the nose which totally went against the look.

T- This is where I became confused. It was a bit of a suprise at first, not what I was expecting at all. It was more spicy and dry than I expected. Very clean finish with just enough rye to hold up to the power of the juniper, though it did lean in favor of the latter. The finish and mouthfeel reminded me a lot of the Rogue Santa's Private Reserve. Something in these two was the same and both finished the same. Again, the first sip was a suprise but it grew on me, and I really enjoyed it. Spicy, citrus, and a crisp herbal zing.

M- See above..nice!

D- 2 is my limit but not a bad offering...I'll admit I had my doubts when was told they were brewing that beer. It turned out nicely to my suprise.

Muddy milk chocolate brown with no accents visible in the dim brewpub light. The ecru head was small to start, was a swirling film on the surface of the liquid by the time I reached a bar table, and was gone less than a minute later. Needless to say, there was no lace. Not an appealing look.

The nose was on the nonspecific side and was notable in that it didn't smell much like juniper or like rye. The problem was, it wasn't aromatic enough to impart anything but general impressions. Three such impressions were brown malty, dark fruity and spicy.

Better and more interesting on the palate, although interesting in an odd, hard to figure out kind of way. Juniper Rye tasted like juniper, but not so much like rye. It was definitely spicy (possibly due to the hops), which is all that some rye malted beers tend to be. It's unusual, in my experience, for much rye flavor to actually be evident in rye beer.

The flavor profile was akin to well-toasted brown bread with accessory flavors of cocoa, brown apples, cinnamon and juniper. I also got the impression that an especially dirty, estery yeast strain was used, but I have no way of knowing with so many flavors hitting my taste buds at once. While the various flavor elements didn't exactly clash, they didn't fit together seamlessly either.

I had a hard time deciding if spicy German hops were in use (it could have been the rye malt) or if citrusy American hops were. Both maybe. The burps were definitely Cascade in origin. In the end, after much drinking and much thinking, I determined that Juniper Rye tasted most like a big altbier.

The mouthfeel was medium in a general sense, with a moderate amount of mouthcoating on the finish that kept it from being crisp and clean. I didn't mind the finely fizzy carbonation one bit.

When I called and found out that Court Avenue had a beer called Juniper Rye on tap, I just had to stop in for a pint after work last night. It was a bit of an odd duck and wasn't all that thrilling solo. While walking back to my car, though, it occured to me that it would have gone fabulously well with a big plate of bratwurst and sauerkraut.