Hey Taco Mac! What’s up with your listing for Rogue Farms Fresh Roast Ale? You have it listed as an IPA, but it’s not such according to Rogue. Rogue beers are featured as Beer of the Month for January, 2016, and so I sampled a mug of Fresh Roast Ale. As I sipped, though, it seemed to me that, at first, this was more of an India Dark Ale than a standard IPA. SO I was going with that, until I looked the beer up on Rogue’s website and saw they call it an American Brown Ale.

Now, American Brown Ale and India Dark Ale can actually intersect at several points, although an IDA is usually fuller in body and has more alcohol than an ABA. Still, they both use dark malts and both are quite hoppy indeed. As we shall see, though, Rogue Fresh Roast Ale has an intense roastiness that I don’t find appropriate to either style.

Rogue says of their Fresh Roast Ale on their website:

A dark, bold, roasty ale reminiscent of fresh-brewed coffee. Just imagine that smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air early in the morning.

They list these ingredients there as well:

11 Ingredients: Rogue Farms Dare™, Risk™, Dare R-3™, Risk R-1™, Risk R-3™, Risk R-7™ & Freshly Roasted R-10 Malts; Rogue Farms Liberty & Rebel Hops; Free Range Coastal Water & Pacman Yeast.

Rogue Fresh Roast Ale is part of the Rogue Farms series of beers, meaning Rogue grows their own malts and hops. The beer has an alcohol content of 5.7% by volume with 37 IBUs. I paid $6.50 for a 20-ounce mug; the beer is sold in 22-ounce bomber bottles here in Georgia for $6.99. So, about the same price for draft as bottled.

My mug of Rogue Farms Fresh Roast Ale arrived a jet black color with a thin head of creamy tan foam and a nose that is roasty, not in a chocolate or licorice way but just dark roasty. The palate is the same, intensely roasty perhaps more in a coffeeish sense but really not 100% like coffee either. As the beer warmed, a bit of soft cookie malt poked through more in line with a brown ale, and some bitter green grassy hops poked through at the last.

Admittedly, this isn’t my favorite Rogue beer, but it was interesting and tasty. I’ll call it an American Brown because Rogue does, but truth be told I’m still not sure what to make of it. I would probably buy it again, though, just because it’s so different and, well, I’d like another stab at it.

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