Another scathing review comes in for Rogue Voodoo Doughnut beer
Apparently these guys received a condom with their bottle.
No idea how strong the beer is; Rogue is always cagey about the ABVs of their brews. We had a quick tasting here at the office, and the results ranged from “no” to “oh!” to “jerky” to “campfire” to “that’s not good” to “I don’t like it.” It generally tastes like a dirty, ashy smoked beer without any of the subtlety of the finer Bamberger rauchbiers. The maple syrup notes pop up now and again, but the smoke flavor, along with fatty hits of unwanted bacon, dominate. Smoked beer enthusiasts might get a kick out of it, and perhaps it could pair decently with a porky, syrupy breakfast of some kind, but otherwise the blend of sweet and smoky is jarring. Also: $13 A BOTTLE.
Breweries: Rogue Ales
Well, you can’t win all the time. Sounds like it was an interesting concept, but maybe a little bit too many competing flavors to balance in a beer.
I always commend breweries that don’t release beers that don’t turn out right…at all. Verdict is still out on this one.
If Rogue is so secretive about their beer ABV’s, why doesn’t someone with a lab connection buy them all and expose the ABV for all of them. That would be real journalism and a piece of cake for someone with a connection.
Well, they do display the Plato, which you can divide by 2.5 to get a crude estimate for the ABV. Plus, if you’ve had a maple/bacon donut from VooDoo, then you would know that the flavor is pretty jarring itself.
I am a big fan of Voodoo Doughnuts’ Bacon Maple bar. I get one whenever I happen to be near one of their two locations (and the line isn’t around the block). I was hoping the beer might be somewhere along the lines as Southern Tier’s Crème Brûlée Stout… But the smoke flavor completely obliterates any of the other flavors. If you drink enough of it, you do eventually become numb to it, and start to taste the maple – but not enough to make it enjoyable. Also, when you get to the bottom of the bottle there are black chunks of God only knows what… Burnt bacon bits? I don’t know, and don’t want to know.
To give you an idea of just had bad the smoke flavor is, all I have to do is tell you this: I now no longer enjoy the smell of bacon cooking. Since drinking this beer, my stomach turns at the slightest wiff of bacon – even two weeks after drinking one bottle. And I love bacon… Or, at least I used to.