You might recall the hops and barley shortage of a few years ago. It didn't affect the likes of Anheuser Busch, Miller and all the other industrial brewers too much because they already had a plentiful supply on hand and had locked in prices by buying hops and barley futures. Craft breweries, on the other hand, were hit hard as both hops and grain were in short supply and increasing in price almost daily, so Brett Joyce, president of Rogue Brewing in Newport, Oregon had an idea - Grow Your Own.
Rogue teamed up with a number of local farmers to plant hop gardens. It was so successful that they quickly got into growing barley too, and a new line of beers was born.
The first of the Chatoe Rogue GYO beers was First Growth Wet Hop Ale - an American style pale ale released last year. The second in the series has been in stores and bars for a month or two now - Chatoe Rogue Dirtoir Black Lager, and having had a couple of bottles of it at home I can confirm that it's pretty good.
The German schwarzbier (black beer) is an interesting creation. It's a lager, brewed with bottom-fermenting lager yeast, but the malts used are the sort of dark, high roast malts normally found in stouts and porters, giving the beer all the aromas and flavours normally associated with those two styles (burnt malt, chocolate, coffee, dark fruits etc.) and a black, often opaque colour. There's likely to be a bigger hop character than a normal lager, although not overpoweringly so. The result is... well, it's kind of a light-bodied stout, more or less. Or an extremely tasty lager, depending on which way you come at it.
We only have 24 bottles so don't leave it too long to try this one.
Jim Hughes, Head Beer Nerd, Alamo South Lamar
“If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink… I’d spend it on drink.” ~ Sir Henry Rawlinson