Rapscallion Roggenbier
Yukon Brewing

1L howler, apparently available exclusively in Alberta at Keg 'n Cork - good thing I was driving past there today, empty vessel at the ready!

This beer pours a mostly clear, bright red brick amber hue, with two fingers of puffy, tightly foamy, and kind of bubbly pale beige head, which leaves some decent bleeding coral reef lace around the glass as it slowly recedes.

It smells of gritty, somewhat spicy rye grain - like the spirit sans the overt alcohol - bready, crackery pale malt, a subtle earthy, mixed orchard fruitiness (apples most prominent), ethereal yeast, and generic leafy, weedy hops. The taste is more of the same, writ large - blended spicy rye grain and pale crackery malt, apple and pear concentrate, middling earthy yeast, and leafy, somewhat understated floral noble hops - not quite grokking the proclaimed Saaz-only hop contingent here.

The carbonation is pretty light, but in a pleasantly frothy and playful manner, the body on the tame side of medium weight, and more or less smooth, a minor clamminess growing as things warm. It finishes off-dry, the rye still informing uber-alles, as the caramel malt seems to have just given up the ghost, with the inherent black pepper spiciness showing some serious pomp, if not exactly a whole lot of circumstance.

With hardly a swath of examples of this appreciably rare style available around here, it's nice to see a 'local' brewer take a heady stab at such, and apparently succeed. The rye is most definitely large and in charge here, bludgeoning its barley brethren into submission right from the start, leaving us with, as the brewer intimates, a beer-drinking experience from 500 years ago, brought back to life.