rogue xs smoke ale clone

has anyone else brewed this. transferred my buddys batch yesterday and the taster was nothing like i expected. of course i've never had the commercial version either, so i don't know what to expect. The Cali ale yeast fermented it super clean, really accentuated the 2 oz. of saaz hops used for flavoring/aroma, and even though its at 1.012, theres not a hint of sweetness, it's bone dry. It's got a nice malt profile, but not sweet at all. the color is somewhat in between a blonde and a amber ale, not as dark as we thought. the smoke taste shows up as a barely perceptible bitter finish, not really what we expected or wanted, as a fan of smoked foods i like a good dose of smoke flavor which this beer really lacks. the problem with that might be the rauch malt we got from AHS, it really didn't have a very strong smoky smell, you could mainly just smell the wood on the bag rather than the malt. the hops are much more present than anticipated, this is actually a pretty hoppy beer with all saaz hop aroma, but no smoke. it actually tastes like a highly hopped lighter version of shiner bock. it doesn't taste bad, completely different than anything we've brewed before, but still good. just not what was expected. we used the all grain recipe out of 'Clone Brews'. We're about to throw the carboy in the kegerator at about 45 degrees. It tastes like a bock type beer, so it seems like it should be cold-conditioned.

Has anyone had this experience with this recipe? Or had the real version? Is my description at all similar to the actual beer.

All the rauch beers I've had have a pretty pronounced smoke flavor. That Alaska Porter(?) is nice...more subtle. I've had the Rogue and I don't remember it in detail (just tasted it...not my thing), and it was pretty smoky I think.

Sounds to me like it's the rauch malt you used. A lot of smoked malt REEKS of smoke, and a lot of rauch beer tastes like someone dropped some smoked bacon in it. Not my cup of tea usually to be honest. It's pretty overwhelming in a beer. But I'm not a fan of chili beer, blueberry mocha porter or most other "creative" concoctions

Maybe you could salvage it with liquid smoke? We use that stuff in cooking all the time, and it gives a VERY pronounced smokey flavor. Or next time get different rauch malt or better yet, smoke your own. If you have a barbecue, it's a piece of cake.

You could even divide it up when you bottle or keg and try different amounts of liquid smoke to see what you like.

Cheers

yeah my buddy who brewed this went to flagstaff this weekend and visited the mogollon rim brewpub. he was at the bar and a tupperware was in front of him so he opened it and it turned out it was some rauch malt. he said it absolutely reeked of smoke. so i'm sure the rauch malt we got was the culprit as far as the lack of smoke goes. but as far as the rest of it goes, i don't know.

next time i'll probably smoke the malt myself if i can find some good alder to do it with.

liquid smoke- i've thought of this but i'm just not sure. i've never used it for cooking (i'm from texas, if we want smoke flavor we get our chainsaw and get to work), but i'll mention it to my friend. we'll just have to taste it after cold-condintoining and see what happens.

Well, if you're a purist, you could probably smoke a few pounds of two row, crush it, and do a little steep and add that liquid to your brew. It'll dilute it a little more, but it could add some nice smokiness. I don't think it takes much to get a lot of smoke flavor in a beer, and if you do a pretty thick steep with less more concentrated liquid, the dillution will be minimal.

Of course, I think that's roughly how they make liquid smoke

Good luck!

could the smokiness have been lost because we ordered it crushed already? it takes about a week to get here, but they seal up their bags good at AHS.

Dude did a smoked porter, and we were amazed in the lack of smoke smell in the rauchmalt. It definitely came through in the beer, though.

I don't have my copy of Clone Brews here.....dammit. How much rauchmalt did it call for?

don't have mine either. i think it was a half pound though.

There's two kinds of smoked malts: rauch and peat smoked. Peat smoked is used by the gram, rauch by the pound. A half pound of rauch in 5 gallons is barely there, the same amount of peat means drinking it next year!

well i'm pretty sure it was a 1/2 lb/, maybe a full lb. so how much shouold we have used. i think rauch malt is an interesting addition to a beer and would like to try it myself in some sort of style (this clone was a friends beer).

BTW anyone smoked their own malts? how long do you smoke them for and is there other good woods for malt other than alder/beechwood?