Rogue's Creek (Kriek?) Ale (5.0)

name: First Growth: Creek Ale

brewery: Rogue Brewery

% alc: 6.0?

type: Ale Brewed with Cherries

vendor: John's Market, Multnomah Village, OR

price: $6.29 (22oz)

first impressions:

You know, not that impressive. But it grew on me over time.

I initially was underwhelmed. While I didn't want a ton of cherry all up in my mouth, I wanted flavor. Aside from a little tart, a little bitter, and a little sweet malty body there wasn't much. I almost felt I was drinking apple juice at one point. As I came back to the glass, pacing around my apartment coping with the cost of this 22 ouncer and looking for insight, I liked it better upon each return. I found that it's initial weaknesses in many ways were also it's strengths. While your classic sour cherry Kriek ale is often too much by the end, this one grew more likeable. By the way, it seemed the Creek was a clever way of getting at the similarly pronounced type of ale called the Kriek.  What do you say Rogue?

So you know, not my favorite beer but we had an interesting time together. Its just hard to buy Rogue as often these days with the prices they charge. I mean help me out here: they are from Oregon (nearly local), they have good distribution (really good for a micro of their quality), and not every one of their beers is the barrel-aged, high-alcohol, special release you would expect for the price. So I'm gonna be hard on them. 

What I do really like about this series (Chatoe Rogue), is that they've grown their own ingredients (GYO). Each bottle has the Latitude and Longitude of their hops and barley yards. So in this case I can kind of rationalize the cost for the homegrown type of mark-up. This was just not my favorite from the series. The others have been pretty great though so check them out. In the meantime maybe they will become nostalgic for their days of selling affordable lovable micro ales.  

review (/10): 5.0

recommended setting: How about latitude 44, 48.2, 18.69. Longitude... Well anyway right at their "Chatoe." Why not? I bet it's beautiful and if this is the beer I gotta drink while I'm there, I'm still happy.

extraneous ramble (optional):