Drink Like a Dead Guy

By Lee Heidel December 10, 2016

rogue dead guy — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale and Whiskey are a perfectly matched pair.

Beers are brewed. Whiskeys are distilled. Different words, different meanings. However, the ingredients and some of the processes can be very similar, and those similarities have brought several traditional breweries into the world of distilling. Dogfish Head, New Holland and Ballast Point all made their names in the craft beer section of your local package shop, but have extended into spirits in recent years. Perhaps the best known creator working in these two genres is Oregon’s Rogue.

Related Post: Highland Park and Sixpoint Collaboration Beers

Rogue Ales started in 1988, when many of today’s hottest brewers weren’t even born. Its reputation was forged on flavorful beers highlighting the extremes extracted from malts, hops and creative additives. That creativity found new heights in beverages like Beard Beer (a beer that utilizes yeast cultured from facial hair) and the Voodoo Doughnut collaboration series where grapes, mango and bacon have alternated through as featured flavors.

Dead Guy Ale — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The stalwart workhorse of the Rogue line of beers is Dead Guy Ale. Designed to be Rogue’s take on the German Maibock, this smooth, balanced beer is easy to overlook. But quality and drinkability never go out of style and that combination has kept Dead Guy Ale in the Rogue rotation since the 1990s.

When Rogue expanded into spirits, they chose the same base ingredients as the beloved Dead Guy Ale for a partner whiskey. Dead Guy Whiskey is made with Munich and Rogue branded malts harvested from its own farm, along with Rogue’s own strand of Pacman Yeast and water. It’s a nearly identical checklist to the original beer. Other than a few small grain variations, the only thing the whiskey is missing is hops.

Dead Guy Whiskey — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The similarity in base elements makes these two drinks perfect pairing companions to judge the effects of distilling and aging versus traditional brewing. Dead Guy Whiskey’s punch of citrus, wood and mild honey bring out the more delicate floral notes in Dead Guy Ale. Meanwhile, the comparatively thick malts and carbonation in the ale give way to the cutting vanilla finish of the whiskey.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale is 6.5% alcohol by volume and available in 22 ounce bottles, six packs and on draft. Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey is 80 proof and available in 750ml swing-top bottles.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Liquor, Beer, and Wine

Lee Heidel is the managing editor of Brew/Drink/Run, a website and podcast that promotes brewing your own beer, consuming the…

Food & Drink

Take a break from pumpkin beer: The best Oktoberfest beers to drink this fall

These delicious drinks are perfect for crisp fall days

Pint of beer

There are at least a handful of holidays (especially drinking centered holidays) that many drinkers don’t really know the true origins of. We know these are special days in which we drink tequila and Mexican beer (Cinco de Mayo), Irish whiskey or dry Irish stouts (St. Patrick’s Day), and giant pints of malty, refreshing German beer (Oktoberfest). And while we’ll get into the other two when the time comes, it’s Oktoberfest’s time in the spotlight.

Oktoberfest is more than simply a day to wear your grandfather’s lederhosen, drink Marzen, eat schnitzel, and listen to oom-pah music. It’s a two-week festival (the actual party is in Munich) that’s celebrated each fall to remember the wedding of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on October 12, 1810.

Food & Drink

Kick off Hispanic heritage month with these 2 incredible tequila drink recipes from mixologist Javier Ramirez

These recipes are great all year, too

Cantera Negra

September 15th through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month. There’s no better way to kick off this month of celebration of the achievements and contributions of Hispanic Americans than by imbibing some well-made, delicious tequila. There’s no spirit more entrenched in Hispanic history and one that deserves not only a month of celebration, but a whole year of celebration.

For those unaware, the spirit must be made in Mexico to be referred to as a tequila. It can’t be made in Milwaukee and then listed as a tequila. That’s a major no-no. As Walter Sobchak states in The Big Lebowski, “There are rules.” But, while bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States, tequila has more specific geographic rules. It. can only be made in the state of Jalisco (where the town of Tequila is located) and a few areas in the states of Nayarit, Tamaulipas, Michoacán, and Guanajuato.

Food & Drink

How to drink bourbon like a pro: A beginner’s guide

These simple steps will help you taste bourbon the way the pros do

Whisky, whiskey, bourbon or cognac with ice cudes on black stone table and wood background

If you consider yourself to be a connoisseur of bourbon, you probably don’t simply throw it back without tasting it. You probably also imbibe it more than just mixed into bourbon drinks. But even if you sip it slowly, enjoying the nuanced flavors of vanilla, caramel, oak, dried fruits, and spices in the corn-based, aged spirit, you’re still probably not getting as much out of your Weller, Elijah Craig, Woodford Reserve, or Michter’s as you could be. It's not easy to learn the real techniques involved in how to drink bourbon.

This is because, even though you’re drinking your bourbon neat, sipping it slowly, taking your time, and trying your best to pick out the various aromas and flavors, you probably don’t have all the skills to do it the way a bourbon distiller, blender, or expert taster might. This is because tasting bourbon (and all whiskeys) is done in steps. It’s more than just drinking and thinking. And it's more than ordering bourbon on the rocks.