Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale and Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana Ale

The title of this post might just look like a jumble of words, but it is in fact the title of two beers drank by myself and 2 friends just recently. I was very excited about these two. As you can see they promise some really unusual flavours. They also cost enough for you to expect a very good quality of beer. You may notice that I haven't put an ABV down. This is because there is none on the bottles nor on the website, that I can see. I like the full list of ingredients that they give on the bottles, including the types of hops and malts. That's about all I liked about them though. I've written them both at once, as I'm not sure if they deserve two separate posts.

Appearance(s)-

Bright pink bottles! There's very little I can add to this, apart from; it didn't put me off at first. That was on the assumption that the beer would be fantastic. The Bacon Maple is a slightly cloudy amber colour, the Chocolate Peanut Butter and Banana was darker, possibly owing to the chocolate malt used in the brewing (great idea, credit where it's due). Both were quite fizzy and had decent lasting heads.

Nose(s)-

Put simply, they smell like the names suggest. The Bacon Maple one has a really strong smoky smell. It's almost too much, well it is too much really, no point sugar coating it. Frankly I couldn't smell much apart from the added flavours, in either.

Taste(s)-

Once again the Bacon Maple is very smoky. Also a bit weird, but not in a good way. Too much bacon, not enough maple I thought. The other wasn't great either, although less disturbing. The flavours just didn't add up. The beers underneath all of those flavours were also not that great, I thought. That could have been because it was masked though. Hard to know.

Conclusion-

You may have noticed, from my oh so subtle, and skilful writing that I didn't really take to these. I'm not saying don't try them, I would say do. It's something new, and different. I wouldn't be buying them again though. I think it might be because I don't really like adding a lot of extra things to beer. The cardinal four ingredients, and maybe another natural flavouring, like coffee beans, or cocoa or fruit juice at a push. Smoked bacon though? banana flavouring? not so sure. As usual though, don't take it from me, try it yourself, with trepidation (that one's for you Noel).