Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [26]
Rogue Ales
Charlie 1981
JOHN MAIER, brewmaster at Rogue Ales, Newport, Oregon, has brewed more than 30 million pints for Rogue. So states John’s short bio, but I beg to differ. John has brewed more than 30 million pints of Rogue Ales for beer drinkers!
Article 2 of Rogue Ales’s “Beer Manifesto” reads, “We hold that beer is worthy of passion.” Agreed.
Rogue Ales is a unique and “beer-alive” brewing company, owing much of its growth in popularity to John Maier’s creative skills.
I don’t quite recall the very first time I met John. It was probably in the mid-1980s. He began his beer journey in 1981 brewing his first batch of homebrew from my book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Entering numerous beer competitions, he saw his newfound passion rewarded with several top honors at homebrew competitions. In 1987 he took a job as assistant brewer at Juneau’s Alaskan Brewing Company.
It was in the year 1988 that I truly recognized the talents of John Maier. The American Homebrewers Association was celebrating its tenth anniversary at their annual conference. I was wearing only a white toga and a wreath of hops. The celebrations were beginning. I was roasted and then twice pied in the face by hooded “pie terrorists.” Speeches were made to embarrass me further. It was all in fun, and the buildup to the final ceremonies awarding the winners of the American Homebrewers Association’s National Homebrew Competition. I had the honors of presenting the top award, best of show and Homebrewer of the Year. It was to John Maier.
When he came to accept his award John whispered to me, “Charlie, it was your recipe for barleywine ale, right out of your book.” In his acceptance speech, he encouraged all by reminding us that quality beer needs passion and anyone can make great beer at home using simple techniques.
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JOHN 1981
First and foremost a “wow!” experience, this beer has lots of malt, lots of hops and lots of passion. Fermented with a vigorous yeast strain providing a relatively dry finish to a very complex ale that will continue to age well, it’s a homebrewed version of Charlie 1981. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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Rogue Brewmaster John Maier in a mountain of hops
In 1989 John became the head brewer at Rogue Ales. I visited the brewery a few short years after it had opened. There was that ever-present sparkle of passion and excitement in John’s eyes and a small grin while he juggled brewhouse, fermentation and packaging activities. They had just received new bottling equipment and were in process of fine-tuning its operation. Since then the beers of John Maier have continued to roll off the conveyers at this small coastal-town brewery.
Would a professionally trained brewmaster with neither homebrewing experience nor passion for beer be capable of what John has achieved? I think not. I can’t keep up with the proliferation of beers Rogue offers to the beer drinker. Go to their website (www.rogueales.com) and count them yourself. John brews more than 30 actively available beers, among them Chipotle Ale, Chocolate Stout, Dead Guy Ale, Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Imperial India Pale Ale, Mocha Porter, Morimoto Imperial Pilsner, Santa’s Private Reserve and Rogue Smoke.
One of John Maier and Rogue Ales’s award-winning and briefly popular beers was “Charlie 1981,” brewed to commemorate the 2001 Association of Brewers’ Annual Craft Brewers Conference. Confronted with a bottle of Charlie 1981, bearing my likeness on the label, I was taken by surprise. John had commemorated his first batch of homebrew (1981) using the book that had started his career.
Charlie 1981 was a bottle-conditioned strong ale with a unique balance of hops and malt that rewarded John and the Rogue brewery with honors at several international competitions. Intended