Bear Republic Brewing Co.'s Red Rocket Ale

On Tuesday night I made a devastating, albeit expected, discovery.  The beer selection on the Spec’s website doesn’t match up with the selection in the College Station store.  What a letdown.  You see, the website ‘browse the store’ function is only accurate for the store in downtown Houston.  I’ve spent a lot, and I do mean A LOT, of time planning purchases and checking availability of the brews I desperately want to buy.  So now I’m not sure how many of my planned purchases are actually do-able. 

Back to Tuesday, I went into Spec’s expecting to come out with some Jester King Wytchmaker and some leftover bottles of Real Ale Sisyphus.  Neither of those were in store.  I made two on the fly selections, jokingly telling Mindy that I “had to settle.”  That’s not entirely true; both bottles I picked up were brews I planned on trying, just at a later date.  The two I ended up with were Bear Republic Brewing’s Red Rocket Ale and Rogue Ale Brewing’s Dead Guy (which I will be reviewing soon, promise.)

They look good together

Sometime after dinner I decided to crack open one of the bombers, the Red Rocket.  Bear Republic Brewing is located in California which has just been named the number one state for breweries by ‘The Street'.  It’s a family business that originated as just a small brewpub, now they ship all over.  Another great thing about Bear Republic is that all of their ales are cask or bottle conditioned.  If you don’t remember what that means, it’s when yeast and sugar are added to create secondary fermentation.  The cask, or bottle, is still fermenting and carbonating until you pop it open.  It’s what people mean by real ale.  For more information, go check out CAMRA, the British Campaign for Real Ale.

Respect.

According to Bear Republic, Red Rocket Ale is a “bastardized Scottish Red Ale.”  At first I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that, but I think I get it now.  It’s a reimagining, drawing inspiration and technique from a traditional style and putting a creative spin on it.  This is what craft beer does best.

My bottle of Red Rocket ale was what’s known as a bomber, it was 22oz. (compared to a normal 12oz.)  Due to the size, I only poured about half of the bottle into my mug.  It looked much darker than I expected a very deep ruby color.  The pour produced about a finger and a half of eggnog colored head with solid retention. 

Sorry to say, I couldn’t smell this beer very well.  One of my roommates was baking (delicious) cupcakes and that sort of dominated my senses.  What I did pick up on was sweet malt and just a hint of piney hops.

Once I started to taste the brew, I could affirm what my nose picked up.  The initial note was very sweet caramel malt.  It had a faint hint of roasted flavor; I think that might just be attributed to the richness of the caramel taste.  To balance, there was a finish of piney hops.  The hop bitterness stuck around for a few seconds after the swallow.  The abv of 6.8% had a slight warming quality.  The beer itself was full-bodied, not something I could drink a whole lot of at once, although I was more than happy with finishing the bomber and having another glass.

Don't ask me why Mindy and I put the dog on the table... but we did

Overall I’d give Bear Republic Brewing Co.’s Red Rocket Ale 4.5 out of 5.  After the first taste, I was overwhelmed with the sweetness and I didn’t think I’d enjoy the rest.  However, after a few more sips it became milder and the hops helped to balance.  When I started on the second glass, I was very happy with this brew.  Also, I think I’d enjoy this beer even more on a cooler night, these Texas summers are brutally hot.

Not to mention the record drought!