Smokey The Beer
Russell Brewing Company

 

Appearance - Pours a cola brown with two fingers of bubbly tan head.

Smell - smoked malts, sausage, peatiness, woody aromas, leafy hops.

Taste - Bready smoked malts dominate the brew followed by the sausage, peatiness, and woody aromas. The hint of leafy hops help to round out the brew.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes smooth and on the sweet side.

Overall - A good example of the style that showcases the "German beechwood" smoked malts to a tee. The smoked malts are at the forefront and provide that pleasant smokiness. Worth a try if you stumble across this one.

 

 

650ml bottle. Wow, Russell really keeps pushing the beer style guide threshold, it would seem.

This beer pours a clear, dark bronzed amber hue, with two chubby fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and certainly bubbly beige head, which leaves a few instances of splattered blotchy lace around the glass as things slowly sink away.

It smells of rather meaty smoked caramel malt, further wooden ashy notes (both the dry and green wet varieties), and very hard to discern leafy, weedy hops. The taste is bready, grainy caramel malt, the sort prone to dipping itself right into a neighbourhood campfire or two, and quickly pulling out, so as not to destroy itself, but instead to glean a bit o' the ashy goodness so apparently sought after in this style. A touch of varied smoked meatiness (beef, salmon, and pork) also comes to mind, as does some well put-upon earthy hoppiness, but yeah, they're not really in a place to say much here.

The carbonation is fairly active in its robust, and mouth-filling frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, and more or less smooth, the smokiness duly taking a recess, or something, surprisingly just like the best of the style - huh. It finishes on the sweet side, of course, the grainy and bready caramel still under the diktat of the smoke, but with a kind of glasnost evident across their hearts and minds, or something.

Yeah, when you use '98% German beechwood-smoked malt', sure it's gonna come across like yer finest Bamberg versions of the Rauchbier style - if you don't fuck it up. And I'm happy to report, no sort of chicanery is employed here, i.e. the same overbearing meaty smokiness predominates, until it, well, doesn't, and one is left at the end with a wispy, grainy, and ethereally smoky lager. Wait, what just happened? Yeah - that.

This is a very interesting beer. The smell is a powerful smoke - it made me think of trying to start a fire with green twigs. The flavour is equally interesting - it reminds me of alder smoked salmon, cooked on a cedar plank. This is definitely malt-forward with very little in the way of hops. Overall, I'm very pleased that I found this in my local Co-Op. In my books, this is another winner for Russell.