About a month ago I tried a bottle of Rogue Ale’s Chatoe Rogue First Growth OREgasmic Ale and rather nicely enjoyed it.  Studying up on this line of brews from Rogue, brewed with Rogue’s own farm grown malts and hops, I realized I had missed one in the series that is right up my alley: Chatoe Rogue Dirtoir Black Lager.

Black lagers, or schwarzbier – a german black beer, tend to be very soft, well balanced beers with hints of coffee and chocolate and always with the smoothness characteristic of a lager.  Either it hadn’t made it into our Missoula stores, or I totally missed it when released back at the start of year. Nonetheless, I grabbed the last bottle in the cooler at Whithey’s up in Kalispell this past week when I stopped in to check out the selection.  Someone had told me Whithey’s had a good selection of 22oz bombers. Turned out to be a true story, particularly if you like Rogue Ales.

Rogue delivers wonderfully with Dirtoir.  It pours thick and solid black with a dark tan head. The aroma is slightly sweet with hints of molasses.  The flavor is earthy, rich and fairly full bodied. There’s coffee, toffee, and molasses flavors.  It is chewy and sticks with you in a long, balanced aftertaste.  It is indeed smooth. It has more complexity than most schwarzbiers and at around 6% abv has a higher alcohol content than the norm.  You’ll get no complaints from me, though. There are times when a crisp, light ale is just the right fix, but more often than not, I’m looking for something rich enough to make me ponder it. And ponder I did.