My wife and I stopped in at the Eugene City Brewery last night for dinner and a chance to try Granddaddy Ale. If you missed my previous post, Granddaddy Ale is a one-off golden ale brewed with 2 pounds of red rose petals, created to commemorate the UofO Ducks trip to the Rose Bowl.
When we ordered our beer, the waitress mentioned that out of the 11 kegs that were produced, only three stayed in Eugene and that they were worried their reserve would not last until the Rose Bowl. Well, that seemed obvious. If they wanted it to last until Friday, they should have waited until Friday to release it. My bet is that it gets polished off tomorrow night, amidst the New Year’s Eve revelry.
The beer was somewhere between light orange and light pink in color, slightly hazy and had a very thin white head. I didn’t get much of anything in the way of an aroma; no rose, no hops, nothing. The initial taste was also a little underwhelming. The press release wasn’t wrong about the low-hopping; there was almost no hop presence. I was able to pick up a faint tartness and a waxy bitter finish. My wife broke in the camera on her new MyTouch snapping a couple pictures of our glasses. I’ll add them to this post once she e-mails them to me.
While we were eating dinner, I overheard one of the brewers talking to another couple about the ale. He said that it needs to warm up before you can really taste the flavors imparted by the rose petals. I decided to leave the rest of my beer until after I had finished eating. This helped quite a bit. Once warmer, the ale had a pronounced floral aroma. The beer also showed a more herbal quality in the taste. This complimented the tartness well and helped round out the finish. Although, I don’t know if I would have been able to identify the taste as “rose” had I not known going in.
While much better at a warmer temperature, I still feel that the beer was too light for something honoring the “Granddaddy of Them All.” I would have liked to see a more intense herbal flavor; the rose contribution in Granddaddy was fairly muted. It is worth trying if you happen to be near a Rogue Public House in the next couple day, but I wasn’t enamored enough to make a another trip to ECB before it is gone.
The big surprise of the night was the garage sale that was happening. ECB had a bunch of Rogue product they were clearing out at awesome prices. Two of the garage sale items were 6 bottle cases of Imperial Porter and Imperial YSB; $16.00 each. We took home a case of the ceramic bottled Imperial Porter. I don’t know if the rest of the Rogue Public Houses are currently running garage sales, but the flyer at ECB stated that their sale started on Dec. 26th and would continue until the product was gone. A keg of Yellow Snow for $75.00 is tempting me to find some space in the house.
When we got home, we cracked open one of the bottles of Imperial Porter. It seemed like a fitting beer to pour; I spent the rest of the evening bottling the porter I brewed a couple weeks ago. My wife gave me a 5 gallon brewing set up for Christmas, so the porter will be the last batch brewed in my tiny 2 gallon fermenter. I also got a chance to use my new bottling bucket, where I blended a glass of the Rogue Imperial Porter into my brew before bottling.
Go Ducks!
Kevin
(Update: added picture of Granddaddy Ale)