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A Rogue Trilogy: Parte the third – Is the miracle of the juniper bushes not enough?

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The first time I tasted Rogue’s Juniper Pale Ale I was blown away by the berriness of the beer. Mikkeller’s My Name is Mette Marit has kind of upped the ante in terms of what a hoppy beer with berries can taste like. Ligonberries were used in that brew as opposed to Juniper berries. That aside Rogue’s Juniper Pale Ale is very easy drink. It’s got some bitterness but it’s nicely balanced out by the malt. Good beer.

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Q & Ale – Can beer that’s cold be brought up to room temperature and stored without ruining it?

This is very informative. Puts a few myths to bed.

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A Rogue Beer Trilogy: Parte Deux & I had too much to dream last night.

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A couple of notes to begin:
1) I don’t write this blog to offend or upset anyone but if you suffer from an overactive political correctness gland this may prove a little bit troubling.
2) I dislike the ‘I woke up and it was all a dream’ trope so this is not that. It’s an actual dream I had last night.
It’s common for Irish pubs to shut up shop on the day of the funeral of a member of the travelling community to avoid ‘trouble’. I’m not saying that this is right or wrong but it happens.
In my dream I was in a very old Athlone pub, it’s not known for it’s craft beers, sticking with the old reliables instead. A local man (not a member of the travelling community) had died. I was in the bar and they had just gotten in a new Nut Brown Ale from an Irish craft brewer. The barman informed me that ‘This would be a great one for your blog!’. There was eating and drinking in this beer as it contained chopped peanuts. Mmmm, lumpy. As it was the day of the funeral and ‘trouble’ was expected the bar man had a great idea. He took all of the traditional beer taps down leaving only the Nut Brown Ale. Which was €7 a pint. Noone, myself included was going to be acting the maggot in that bar anyway. I don’t know if anyone came in from the funeral as I woke up at that point. By the way, if any Irish brewers are reading this and considering brewing a Nut Brown Ale with the nuts left in, please don’t! 
In keeping with today’s morbid theme and continuing this week’s Rogue trilogy I had one of their Dead Guy Ales the other night. It’s a German style Maibock which was first brewed to mark the Day of the Dead but has since become available year round. It’s honey coloured and starts off very sweet and fruity. There is a slightly bitter after taste. It’s quite good but I think one of them at the end of the night would be plenty to send you off to dreamland.

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A Rogue Beer Trilogy: Parte One

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Beer supplies are running dangerously low at Simon Says Towers. I am going to stretch the next three posts out a little bit instead of one long post. Any complaints down the back? Take a number!
O’Brien’s generally has a few Rogues in stock and I can’t believe I’ve only written about their chocolate beer here. I had to check to be sure. The first one I sampled this time around was their American Amber. The beer is amber in colour as you would expect. I think it is one of the more perfectly balanced beers I have drank. The hops and malt work exceptionally well together. It’s the  Baby Bear’s porridge of beer; just right!
In case any of you are worried that I might die of thirst, fear not, an order is on it’s way and in the mean time I have a lot of home brew on standby. You may remember this brew from a few weeks back. It’s a standard red but the longer I leave it the better it gets.

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