Inspiration

There is definitely a movement that's been stirring (use pun as appropriate), resulting in the appearance of craft beers that recognize peoples desire for some combination of locally sourced, organic, and high quality.  On the term locally sourced, it may be more appropriate to say conspicuously sourced.  In other words, I might not care that it was necessary grown local to me, but that I know where it came from.  More importantly, a brewer crafted it with input from the ground up (another appropriate pun).  In any case, I have taken this as an excuse to sample some of these brews and I will here share my impressions.  I apologize upfront for the photos not being true professional quality....they were snapped with my iphone.  Here is the first in a series to come.

Rogue Brewery's "Chatoe Rogue" Series Dirtoir Black Lager

http://www.rogue.com/beers/dirtoir-black-lager.php

This is part of the GYO series or beers that Rouge has started.  GYO is Grow Your Own and they indicate the series as being dedicated to farmers and fermenters.  I have long loved Rogue Brewery and their antics, but this is a movement after my heart.  I wish they weren't 2-3K miles away.

Back to the beer.  As you can see in my photo, it is indeed a black lager.  It should in no way be confused with a stout, as the character is true to style (Schwarzbier).  It is a very drinkable beer with a noticeable but not strong hop pallet and it lacks the stronger toasted malt flavors of a stout.  Also notable in the photo is the beautiful head.  I don't know if it was the extra loving care the barley received during growth, malting and production, but this beer had one of the nicest heads I've had stick to my upper lip....and it was well retained through the beer.  Over all, not my most favorite of beers (I am a hop head) but very good.  Recommended for sure.

You may wonder to what I referred when I said "extra loving care" for the malt.  That brings me to the main point of the post and that is that Rogue has started their own farm.  They produced the barley and hops used in this brew.  Very cool indeed.  Even more cool is that the side of the bottle states the latitude-longitude coordinated for where these two ingredients were produced.  I know it is hard to see in the photo, but trust me it's there.

Next to come:  Review of Sierra Nevada's Estate Ale