Rye Beer

I won this "Sample Only" bomber of O'Fallon Hemp Hop Rye at an O'Fallon event last month and have waited patiently to crack it open. I knew very little about this beer prior to prying the cap off. At the O'Fallon event I was told that this beer will be the new flagship brew that will start rolling off of the specialty bomber line in O'Fallon for distribution this spring. This beer starts life as a Rye beer that has toasted hemp seeds added during the brewing process. It sounds like a novelty beer, and O'Fallon has been lackluster in the past, so I was anxious to test this new flagship bomber....

It's not very often that you run across a beer like Boulevard's Rye-on-Rye and that makes it a little to set expectations. I expect this beer to be different, to push the boundaries a little and bring something to the table that other Rye beers, or other barrel aged beers, don't. I started to worry a bit when I saw the label for the Rye-on-Rye, it says that this bottle contains 33% ale and 67% ale aged in rye whiskey barrels. That's a 2:1 ratio in favor of barrel aged beer, meaning this beer is going to taste a lot like a whiskey barrel. That sounds a bit dangerous...

Rye beers are more popular than ever. It seems like most breweries use malted rye in at least one of their beers. I tend to glance over most ryes I see on the beer list because a good deal of them are Rye IPAs, not the kind of beer I'd choose to showcase my rye malt. This bottle from Left Hand is a Rye Bock, a Bavarian style Bock that's been brewed with malted rye instead of barley. There's nothing off the wall about this beer but it still stands out in a crowd. What makes Left Hand's Rye Bock remarkable is it's quality and flavor.

When I first saw Goose Island's Mild Winter and read that it was brewed with rye, I was skeptical that it'd be anywhere near being considered mild. But, they pulled it off. Unlike other Rye Beers that I've had, which were spicy and bitter, this beer is mellow but still full of flavor. The Mild Winter smells like warm tortillas from a Mexican restaurant and it tastes like a dry filtered wheat with a and extra handful of salty and starchy grains thrown in. The rye in this beer retains on a fraction of it's signature bitterness because it's been balanced out by mild malts that bring in a hint of sweetness.

Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel's Route Des Épices packs a lot of flavor into a beer that's only 5% alcohol. This beer's flavor profile is deceptive though... while it tastes like a much bigger beer it flavors aren't really coming from fermentable sugars. Rather, this beer's flavor comes from a combination of hops (to a lesser extent) and peppercorns (which dominate your palate). I can't say I'm not surprised. After all, this beer's name translates as Spice Route. The spices in this beer aren't what you usually get when someone says a beer tastes spiced. Peppercorns are, well... peppery. This beer is so peppery that it really takes away from the other flavors in this beer. Malts, which are obvious on the nose, are barely noticeable when you take a drink of this beer.