[BW] Beer Blog

Brewery: Rogue
Style: Fruit/Vegetable Beer
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: 84
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.25 (64th Percentile)

I recently purchased a case of this at Rogue’s garage sale for the low low price of $25. Not only was I excited about the price, but I love Rogue’s Morimoto Soba Ale. What does that have to do with my case of Buckwheat Ale? They’re the same thing!

Rogue repackages a few of their brews for the Japanese market and this is one of them. As you can see by the bottle there isn’t much English. What you can’t see is around the cap is printed “If you can read this, you need a beer” in English. I love it.

Although I have already mentioned my thoughts on Morimoto Soba Ale before, I figured I might as well give it another shot. It’s been about a year since my last review and I’ve never reviewed it from a 12oz bottle before, so here we go.

Look - Very light amber in color with traces of visible carbonation. Poured with a very small head that dissipated quickly.

Smell - Smells sweet with a hint of fruit and caramel. Not overwhelming by any means. Very inviting.

Taste - The initial mouthfeel is rather creamy. The experience is quite different from most beers as the carbonation almost gives it the feel of seltzer water. The taste is very refreshing with slight hues of citrus and toasted malts.

Overall this is a great beer to have on a warm day or to pair with barbecue. Definitely worth a try due to its uniqueness alone.

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I know, I know. I keep saying I’m going to update more often and I don’t. Well summer is by far my favorite beer season in addition to me having the most free time. I promise this site will rock as hard as it did in the past.

As for the purpose of this post, yesterday I had the opportunity to take a tour of the Rogue brewery and the chance to visit their garage sale.

First off, if you ever hear about Rogue having a garage sale, GO THE FIRST DAY. I ended up going on the last day of the sale and there were slim pickings. However, I still managed to pick up a full case of 12oz Buckwheat Ale bottles and four pint glasses for a combined $36. I was especially excited about picking up the Buckwheat Ale as it is only available in Japan aside from buying it from the brewery. Look for a full review of this brew within a couple days.

The brewery itself isn’t the prettiest or fanciest place in the world, but that’s the point. Our tour guide referred to themselves as “stingy elephants” and you can tell. All of their machinery, aside from the bottling line, is purchased used or traded for. Their offices are even a big particle board box. Had I known ahead of time I would have taken pictures.

One of the coolest aspects of the tour is I purchased a pint of Eugene City Brewery’s 100 Meter Ale, which I was allowed to take along with me. This brew was a delicious combination of what tasted like a pale ale meets a bitter. Specifically, imagine Deschute’s Mirror Pond mixed with Rogue’s Brutal Bitter. Either way I highly recommend trying it if you get a chance to visit one of Rogue’s public houses. For more information, here’s a link to Ratebeer’s page.

The tour ended in what was essentially a trophy/awards room. It’s amazing to see all of Rogue’s awards in one room. There are also all sorts of cool pictures and news clippings of various Rogue-related events around the world. We were also sworn in as members of the Rogue Nation and given ID cards to get discounted pints. If you can’t make it to the brewery, you can also get one by visiting any of their public houses.

Overall the tour was a ton of fun. If you’re ever in the Newport area, do yourself a favor and take a tour. You’ll get to meet a lot of cool people and have the opportunity to taste all sorts of brews you probably won’t find at your local pub.

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