Beer Review: Rogue Juniper Pale Ale

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 5.3 percent

Appearance: Rogue's Juniper Pale Ale has a body that resembled the color of golden honey and had a slight haze that hid any presence of carbonation bubbles. It was topped off with a puffy white head that rose to a peak of about three inches. If was soft to the touch and faded away fast as you drink it. Most of it stuck to the inside of the glass. Enough was left that I wasn't sure whether I should have still called it head or lacing. In my book that's a good thing.

Smell: I was kind of reminded of a spruce ale when I initially smelled this brew. I was kind of confused. It was full of spruce and pine. By pine, I don't exactly mean in a hop sense. It actually smelled like the woods. Basically, intense grassiness. I didn't pick up much of anything else such as hop notes or malt.

Taste: To put it simply, the pine essence in this beer was stingy on my tongue. A lot of people expect this beer to have tartness of berries when in fact juniper berries are more like pine cones. I got some of the malt character this time around. There was a ton of malt in this, as Rogue had a big malt bill. It was almost as if the flavor of this beer was undecided on what it actually wanted ti be. This had a very dry finish as well. Nothing in this beer said pale ale to me.

Overall Rating: 

A week or two ago I posted a Monday Rant on the increasing variety of American Pale Ales. This just might fall into that category. This beer was just weird for my tastes. I understand that Rogue is very creative and I appreciate that, but this just wasn't up my alley. When I get spruce or pine, I want something darker, sweeter and a with some molasses or brown sugar.