Style: India Red Ale
ABV: 5.3%
Presentation: 650 ml brown bottle
Brewery: Rogue
Country: Oregon, U.S.A.

KANPAI! w/ Jeff Werstiuk

Some of you out there in the crowd have already recognized what this is all about, but for those not in the know (or without cable t.v.) I’ll bring you up to snuff.  The man from the title of this ale is the captain of a crab fishing ship called the Northwestern on the show The Deadliest Catch, and has appeared on every season so far. A dedicated man who has been fishing since he was 14, and even used to cut school to do it.  He begun fishing full-time after high school, and started running the Northwestern at the age of 24.  Part of the current crew are Captain Sig Hansen’s brothers Edgar and Norman, and this offering from Rogue is dedicated to the 3 Hansen brothers.  Not only that, but a portion of the proceeds go towards the Fisherman’s Fund, a non-profit organization set up by the Hansen families to help benefit Pacific Northwest charities.

Rogue has come up with a bit of a curious anomaly by labelling this as an India Red Ale.  Traditionally a red ale tends to be fairly balanced, with sweet and lightly toasted malt, usually focusing on the malt.  A few breweries keep the malt sweetness but lean towards a more bitter, hoppy intensity, yet this is not the norm.  By adding “India” to the style one can only deduce that this India Red Ale is akin to an India Pale Ale, which is defined by a higher alcohol percentage and an intense hoppy presence.  So rather than remaining an anomaly, Rogue decided to openly account for that extra hop presence within this style and relabel it.  Or so I’m assuming…  Let’s check it out!

A pint glass or mug will work fine for this stuff, and perhaps let it sit 5 or 10 minutes after removing the bottle from the fridge before you open it and pour.  From this India Pale Ale expect a deep cloudy nutty amber appearance, with a tall frothy cinnamon coloured head.  There’s a clean malty aroma, with floral and citrus notes, and mild earthy spice.  The mouthfeel is medium-bodied with a smooth, clean texture.  Now rather than a caramel sweetness to the flavour you’ll encounter an earthy toasted malt at first, with balanced grassy, herbal, citrus hops on the finish.  It’s only in the aftertaste where it picks up any real bitter hoppy intensity, with a soft astringency and some white grapefruit zest.  Certainly closer to the English IPA style of hopping than the American, and even along the lines with the malt.  I’d go a step further than Rogue and label this an English India Red Ale.

Rogue recommends pairing this India Red Ale with beef and seafood, and I can only imagine Alaskan King Crab being what they predominantly had in mind (wink wink).  The earthy and herbal qualities would also pair well a pork or lamb roast, and oddly enough this would balance out a decent shrimp scampi quite nicely.  Or perhaps keep a couple handy for the next time you’re watching an episode of The Deadliest Catch, and cheer on Captain Sig.  Hey, the man works so hard they named a beer after him.

The next steps in the cooler:

From This Brewery:
American Amber
St. Rogue Red
Kell’s Irish Lager
Brutal Bitter
Chipotle Ale
Chocolate Stout
Dad’s Little Helper
Dead Guy Ale
Double Dead Guy
Hazelnut Brown Nectar
Juniper Pale Ale
Mocha Porter
Morimoto Black Soba Ale
Shakespeare Stout
Summer Orange Honey Ale
Santa’s Private Reserve
Younger’s Special Bitter
XS Imperial Porter
XS Imperial IPA
XS Imperial Red
XS Imperial Stout
XS Old Crustacean Barleywine
XS Younger’s Special Bitter

Other Amber Ales:
Yukon Red
Fish Tale Amber Ale
Broken Rake Amber Ale

Lateral Steps:
Yukon Ice Fog
Samuel Smith’s India Pale Ale
Marston’s Old Empire Ale

For The Adventurous:
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Tree Hophead
Olde Deuteronomy - Alley Kat

Style: German Oktoberfest Lager
ABV: 5.6%
Presentation: 650 ml brown bottle
Brewery: Rogue
Country: Oregon, U.S.A.

KANPAI! w/ Jeff Werstiuk

This excellent beer is not only named after and dedicated to Rogue’s Brewmaster John Maier, but brewed by the man himself as an homage to the fine lagers produced in the Fatherland of his German heritage.  It’s also worthy of the name of the man that has been there since the first batch of Rogue beer ever produced, and who has helped that brewery win over 500 awards for the quality of his creations.

Utilizing a blended strain of lager yeast that promotes a richer malt character and a full-bodied mouthfeel, Maier has pulled off a complex and satisfying Oktoberfest style beer.  The curious thing about Oktoberfest is that it is not only the name of a festival, but a style of beer as well that of course was eventually spawned by the annual event itself.  The very first Oktoberfest itself was not a festival at all, it was the October 17, 1810 public celebration of the marriage between the Crown Prince Luitpold I and Princess Theressa of Bavaria upon a large meadow in the German city of Munich.  An anniversary celebration has been held in Munich between the last week of September and the first week of October in the guise of the Oktoberfest for nearly 200 year, except during periods of war.  Regarding the beer itself the Oktoberfest style with initially presented at the festival of its namesake in 1872, credited to Gabriel Sedlmayr of the Spaten Brewery, which was an adaptation of Austrian brewer Anton Dreher’s Vienna style lager.  Traditionally it is a style noted for a complex malt profile with a dry finish and creamy texture.

This Maierfest Lager is best served in either a mug or pint glass, a wide rim will help accentuate the rich aromas waiting to be released and experienced.  As it warms the aromas and flavours revealed will become more complex.  The beer itself is a deep rustic golden amber in appearance, crowned by a tall frothy slightly off-white head with excellent retention, and that will slowly settle over time.  Upon inhalation be prepared for aromas of rich bready malts, from buttery notes to baked bread to a toasted character, followed by clean crisp grains and grassy, mild herbal hops.  The mouthfeel is one of the best and most enjoyable aspects of this lager, creamy smooth and full, with a brief kick of carbonation on the finish-I wish if only all beers could be delivered this way…  True to the aroma the flavour nearly mirrors it with complex bready malt up front, toasted and even nutty at times, with crisp grains in the middle, and finishing with dry, well-contained grassy hops, and a faint lingering buttery malt aftertaste.

Regardless of your personal favourite beer style this Maierfest is an excellent choice worth checking out and exposing yourself to an exemplar of the style, and how rich and complex and fulfilling a lager truly can be.  Rogue recommends pairing this beer with seafood and poultry dishes.  I would take a step beyond that and suggest this Oktoberfest beer would pair well with at first the obvious choice, German cuisine.  Other good options would be white sauce pasta dishes, sushi, seared or grilled ahi tuna, roasted or roti chicken, peanut sauce based noodle dishes, plus curry dishes such as balti, roganjosh, jalfrazie and even a thick bhuna.  Maierfest would be fine on its own as well as a very satisfying session beer.

The next steps in the cooler:

From This Brewery:
American Amber
St. Rogue Red
Kell’s Irish Lager
Brutal Bitter
Chipotle Ale
Chocolate Stout
Dad’s Little Helper
Dead Guy Ale
Double Dead Guy
Hazelnut Brown Nectar
Juniper Pale Ale
Mocha Porter
Morimoto Black Soba Ale
Shakespeare Stout
Summer Orange Honey Ale
Santa’s Private Reserve
Younger’s Special Bitter
XS Imperial Porter
XS Imperial IPA
XS Imperial Red
XS Imperial Stout
XS Old Crustacean Barleywine
XS Younger’s Special Bitter

Lateral Steps:
Warsteiner Dunkel
Ayinger Jahrhundert Bier
Hacker-Pschorr Edelhell
Kilkenny Cream Ale
Caffrey’s Cream Ale
Boddington Pub Ale

For The Adventurous:
Samichlaus
Konig Ludwig Weiss
Don De Dieu - Unibroue

Jason Foster

Where better to start a course on beer than with how to better enjoy the experience of drinking it. It may surprise those who have grown up drinking Coors Light that beer is actually a very complex beverage. There is an impressive mixture of flavours and aromas found in that pint glass in front of you. But if you chug it down unthinkingly, you are going to miss most of it.

And the good thing about beer is that, unlike those snobby wine tasters, you need to actually swallow it to pick up its full offerings.

The first thing you need to know is that beer is about balance. A beer needs to keep its two dominant characteristics - sweet and bitter - in some kind of harmony. Where on that scale of balance the brewer lands determines much about the style of their particular beer. And how you experience that beer depends upon how you detect its flavours.

The key to fully enjoying the taste of a beer is to be able to both appreciate the whole of the experience, but also to isolate the different components. The former is about your mental state of mind, but the latter requires a bit of awareness of how to detect flavours. Let’s walk through the taste cascade of beer.

Of course, most of us now know our perception of flavour is really a complex interaction of smell and taste. Fair enough. But allow me to oversimplify by focussing solely on your tongue and mouth. And while everyone is different, we can generally identify different areas of the tongue that detect various flavours.

Take a sip of your favourite beer, but slowly. That first sensation, on the tip of your tongue, is the sweetness. It might be light and grainy. It could be caramel or toffee.  Regardless, the first impression a beer will make is with its sweetness, which comes from sugars left behind from fermentation. This is the first sign post for beer tasting - how sweet is it and what is the quality of the sweetness?

Jumping to the end, the other major sign post is at the very back of your tongue - bitterness. (This is why beer must be swallowed, unlike wine). Here you find the sharp, drying sensation of bitterness. It can be grassy or spicy or citrusy. This is the hops talking. And it is the bitter yang to the barley malt ying.  But note, in darker beers, that coffee-like bitterness you pick up isn’t from hops but from malt roasted just like coffee.

In the middle of the sipping a number of taste buds might get triggered. If it is a bitter beer, like an Alley Kat Full Moon Pale Ale or a Wild Rose Industrial Park Ale, then after the swallow you might get some lingering grassy dryness. This is also hops, but not bitterness. It is from hop resins not boiled off - and it creates a complexity and dryness to a beer. It comes from adding hops after the boil.

Some beers might set off your sour buds, which are at the middle-edge of the tongue. In most beers, this is a bad sign, of something gone wrong. But there are certain Belgian and French beers which highlight this quality. Duchesse de Bourgogne and any beer from Lindeman are good examples.

Other beers leave a puckering sensation in your mouth. This is a graininess that comes from the grain used and the fermentation. In some styles it can be positive at low levels. Generally it should be avoided.

Finally, you might get the fruitiness across the sides of your mouth that you will recognize from, well, fruit. It might be a light pear or berry flavour. It could be darker like raisins. Or it might be a noted banana flavour. This is to be expected, as fruity notes are a natural byproduct of yeast fermentation, especially in ales. German wheat beer brewers use special yeasts to highlight this fruity nature.

Once you start paying attention, you will find dozens of different flavour sensations in that beer. It won’t all come at once, however. Teaching yourself to identify the components of beer takes time. But knowing how to highlight particular flavour notes will enhance your enjoyment of your beer. This column is just a primer on how to taste beer. There are subtle complexities awaiting you as you develop your palate.

For now, sip that beer with care and bask in its complex flavours as it works its way across your mouth and down your throat. That is beer heaven speaking.

Welcome to Beer 101 w/ Jason Foster:
The class where studying is fun.

I know you love beer. You might even know a thing or two about beer. Once a month on this website I am going to take your love for beer and make it deeper and richer by teaching you more about this lovely elixir that has enraptured men and women for centuries.

The column will offer something for everyone. For the beer newbie, it will inform you about beer basics such as fermentation, ingredients and styles. Yet the more experienced beer drinker will find enough fact, anecdote, history and quirkiness to add to their knowledge base, too.

But before we start, you have a right to know about your professor. I am Jason Foster from Edmonton, Alberta. I am an award-winning homebrewer, certified beer judge, and beer columnist for CBC Radio (Edmonton), Edmonton’s Vue Weekly and Planet S Magazine in Saskatoon. I know a lot about beer - its history, how to brew it, and, mostly, how to enjoy drinking it.

So let’s get started with the lessons…