Rosé Beer?

In case it's any indication of trends, Rare Beer of the Month Club featured a Rosé Ale from Calicraft Brewing in January. It was pretty good, but not something I would regularly reach for.

 

The word rose is just picking up a lot of steam.. At my shop I sell a ton of wolfer estate rose cider, nine pine rose, angry orchard rose, pampellon rose, and original sin rose and those are just ciders. My girl loves wolfer estates rose as that's all she will drink so I know the rest of the beer in my fridge is safe

 

Hey, it worked for IPAs and stouts!
@mudbug said it best months ago: “Nobody ever went broke making sweet drinks for Americans.”

I do think the ‘rosé beer’ is a mini-trend. Definitely related to the recent surge in popularity of rosé wine itself, which has not been chic for years. However, sweet, fruity, colorful beers are certainly not a new thing e.g. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/187/

But does this mean that Champale is making a comeback?!

 

God that ad looks "rapey", but relevant nonetheless. I agree with your thoughts, just won't be for me.

 

If you haven’t google image searched Champale ads yet, you owe it to yourself. So bad/good.

And yeah, they totally came up with the rosé beer first. Way ahead of their time. Even canning that bad boy!

 

Pittsburgh Brewing Co. (Iron City) even had a knock-off:

As for Pink Champale, M. Jackson said it contained grenadine, but I never saw an article or promo material where the brewery said it.

I suppose Hamm's "Right Time" and National's "Malt Duck" should be mentioned as well.

 

Ugggh. Down the hype train again. Marketing weasels strike once more. .

 

Maybe not on the former - they had a "Red" version but turns out it was cherry-flavored.

"Malt Duck" contained "unfermented concentrate of red grape" - they later had "white grape" and "apple" versions.

 

Count me out of this "trend". If Pink Champale is the new wave I'll stick with my old standards. F' you marketing Department!!!

 

What I've never understood is how people get so upset over something like this. If it tastes good, whatever.

 

The great dry roses of France, Spain, and Italy got lost in the dust of White Zinfandel going back into the early 80s. Oeil de Perdrix (eye of the partridge) wines date to the Middle Ages. Now all of the cool folks are quaffing dry roses from all over the world. Then there was that little item, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, which is my favorite sour and framboise, and definitely a rose. It's been around for a good while! Our little company could almost not give it away in the early 00s.The newer rose beers are beautiful in the glass and mostly dry and some quite vinous. I think it's a good trend. I really like what Cascade has been doing with fruit for years.

 

Rhinegeist in Cincinatti has Bubbles. It actually used to be considered a cider wine because of how it was made, but then they added some low IBU(I think Cascade) hops to it and they were able to call it beer(they saved money because it was taxed differently). Also, it was supposed to just be a one off thing, but it was so popular that they sold out of it, so now it is one of their flagship beers.

 

Yeah, maybe it is White Zinfandel's fault; it even managed to turn people against the red variety. Me, I hear rose and immediately think of a fine one from the Loire, d'Anjou or something like that. Feuillatte even makes a damn nice brut rose.

But anyway, maybe that's why I'm more on board with the concept. Plus, those beers listed in that article are hardly 'champale' level stuff.

 

Check out some of the Spanish roses made from Monastrell. They are amazing values. And, just to keep beer on the "burner" so to speak, the Cascade Blueberry we had a few years back with blueberry pie was stunning. I can still remember the exact flavors.

Yeah, I remember that Lytton Springs bottling of Sutter Home before white Zinfandel subsumed the varietal. It was huge, brambly, earthy, spicy peppery, and very dry despite sporting around 15% alcohol. Anyway, I remember some French framboise from along the French/Belgian border that was excellent. On that same trip I learned to love funky dry ciders.

 

http://www.sideprojectbrewing.com/rose-du-ble/

 

Rose du ble would be a good choice.

 

That Anderson Valley Rose Gose is tasty. We enjoyed it.

 

We're releasing a new beer at Vision Quest in Boulder, CO in this theme. There have been many pink beers but this one, called Barbera, is made with briefly macerated Barbera and Cab Franc (we have wine processing equipment for this and get grapes from Lodi CA every year). This makes it worth referencing Rosé on the bottle in my opinion. I made a golden sour and then refermented with the sweet purple must, but not on the skins. Lots of brewers (myself included) have also fermented with the skins, grape or other berries, which gives way more color, and those beers don't really look like Rosé. For us, it was just a natural way to describe the beer... again we wouldn't call it Rosé without grapes, and also not without this specific wine grape juice/ macerated must refermentation process which gives the beer not a red, but truly pinkish to orange color very similar to wine examples. Brewers should use whatever names they want, but this Rosé terminology has been used accurately with many beers (many of them sour) that I've tried from Crooked Stave and other mixed-ferm/ oaked producers where red wine grape must was used. I'm looking forward to trying the Paradox bottle I just picked up in a side by side with our Barbera Rosé, which we'll release sometime next month. Cheers -Adam.
http://paradoxbeercompany.com/paradox_beer_select.php?name=Rose' Is Bae&id=32