Pint or Stout, or Pint o' Stout: Repo Man by Revolution Brewing

While I am no epigeneticist, it's difficult for me not to think that the diets of my ancestors are somehow manifest in my palate. Let me give you an example: rye.

Rye is a hardy plant. It's so stout, in fact, that you can grow it in relatively poor soils and even as far north as the Arctic Circle. If you go back to medieval Europe, you'll find lots of poor people eating rye bread while those who were better off ate wheat. And the really well-heeled got to eat white bread because they could afford flour made from wheat that was shorn of its bran or whatever bits of the wheatberry gave a brown tint. Thusly it's quite ironic that white bread today here in the States is cheap and plentiful.

Today rye is most prevalent in northern and eastern Europe with Poland and Germany, which only started growing more wheat than rye in the 1950s, being the largest producers. Now, I love rye so is it mere coincidence that 50% of my genetic inheritance is Polish and German? Or that the great majority of my ancestors hailed from northern and eastern Europe? I ask you.

If we share this rye bread
Then we can eat
Secale cereale

Sorry there, Sting.

With my taste for rye, it is sometimes frustrating that there are so few rye beers. I think every brewer I've ever broached this subject with gave me the same riposte: rye is a pain in the ass to brew with. It turns into this thick sludge like oatmeal so brewers need to be extra vigilant and stir and stir until they can stir no more. Plus, I guess it's also a pain to clean up. This behavior is apparently due to the pentosans, a type of carbohydrate, in rye which can absorb a lot of water.

Today's brewers are beset with demands for ever more fruit flavors and this, combined with rye's intractable brewing behavior, means that there are precious few rye beers around. Not being much of an IPA drinker, I largely avoid beers of that style including the ones made with my beloved grain which means the precious is even rarer. So, when I heard that Chicago's Revolution Brewing was going to release a rye stout last autumn, I made sure to keep an eye out for it during my treks to Chicagoland during the holiday season.

I don't know much about Revolution but they seem to be the New Glarus of Chicago. I believe they brew more beer than any other craft brewery down there that isn't owned by AB-InBev so they're like the top dog of the Chicagoland brewing scene. They brew a lot of IPAs and a lot of barrel-aged stouts and their reputation is mostly based on these brews. Or so it seems to me. Neither of these styles can accurately be called my jam so I have mostly avoided Revolution's beers. But I've had a few of their other brews and I found most of them to be good.

Repo Man is one of their limited release beers and was apparently brewed back in the early days of the brewery. The name and its funkadelic label refer to the classic 1984 film of the same name by Alex Cox and starring Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez.

 

My pour produced a goodly sized head of loose, tan foam. It dissipated quickly and, if memory serves, it was another one of those instances that I've seen a fair number of lately where I was reminded of soda in that all those bubbles popped and made an audible PSHHHHH sound that I could easily hear with the glass several inches from one of my ear holes. Holding my glass up to the light, I saw that it was a deep, dark reddish brown. (Is this an accurate description of chestnut?) Oh, and it appeared to be clear. I was able to smell coffee, some roasted graininess, and an earthy scent which I think was the Precious.

My tongue was greeted by a medium dose of fizz as well as the corresponding flavors from the aroma - coffee, roasted grain, and rye - but with a little dark chocolate for good measure. It had a nice medium body and a mild astringency. I tasted a lingering bit of malty sweetness at the finish along with that coffee flavor. Then some herbal/grassy hop flavors came in to add some bitterness and end things with moderate dryness.

Excellent! I love how the roasty grain, coffee, dark chocolate, and rye flavors all come together to form this savory synthesis yet the sweetness peeks through on the finish being chased by the hops doing their best to keep it at bay. There's a real panoply of flavors here and each sip is like a micro-journey through them all. Wonderful beer.

Junk food pairing: a great beer like this deserves to be paired with a great junk food so do yourself a favor and get the largest bag of Jay's Hot Stuff potato chips to go with your Repo Man.