Rogue Dead Guy

Rogue Dead Guy

The top of the game, when the game is low-information labeling. No useful info whatsoever on the label, other than it’s made in Oregon. In fact, i’m not even sure if this is Dead Guy Beer made by Rogue, or if it’s Rogue Beer made by Dead Guy. Since the cap says “Rogue” i’m gonna go with Dead Guy Beer made by Rogue, although it’s not Rogue Brewing, it’s Oregon Brewing, even though there is a Rogue River in Oregon. Confused yet?

Not sure if this is ale, IPA, lager, pilsener or eau de toilette. But there is a guy on the label who looks dead, holding a beer stein. And he’s wearing a hat, not sure if i’m supposed to read anything into that or not.

The color is very orange, not quite porterish but darker than a pils. This could be a lager or an amber ale. Not much carbonation but plenty of floating specks, so whatever it is, it’s not filtered too heavily, and that’s usually a good sign to my tastes. Smell is heavy, orange-caramel, sweet in the way that a rotting orange is sweeter than a fresh orange, in that sickly way which rotting things have. Like dead guys.

Oh, oof, and that’s the taste of it too. Rotting orange, i nailed it on the head by the smell. Actually, i’ve had beer like this before, from somewhere in Eastern Europe, i don’t speak Cyrillic letters so don’t know what the label of that one said, but it’s still on display as a curiosity in the row of unique beer bottles above my bar. Pretty sure it’s Russian, and it was probably a high-class brew in Russia, but not too great on my American tastebuds. This neither.

Anyway, that’s what this Rogue Dead Guy reminds me of. Nearly flat, very sweet in a fruity way, and a back-mouth taste of highly toasted grains. I like that grain taste, but the floral sweetness and fairly syrupy consistency are not for me. If forced into a corner and told to guess, i’d think that this is in the style of a Belgian ale. Maybe that’s what the hat means, maybe it’s a dead Belgian monk’s hat.

I remember that Russian beer had a slight fishy taste to it, like they used water right from the Volga. That’s not in here, even though the Rogue River in Oregon is famous for good fishing, but all the other things i did not like are in here. Yes, there’s a dead guy here, but not sure if he fell into the fermentation vat and that’s what i taste, or if he simply drank this beer and subsequently died.

Someone may like this kind of beer, but not me. Rating: 1.3

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