It’s always a pleasant surprise to see a smokebeer that isn’t the color of used motor oil. Scarlet Fire Rauchbier was a seasonally translucent autumn red color. $6 for a full pint at Petrol Station Houston was some relief after the last two $8 snifter’s I had, but beer snobery isn’t exactly a poor mans game. Right from the start the smoke makes its presence known with a strong campfire smell and then topping that off with an almost as smoky taste. Maybe it’s just me but I hold smokebeers in high regard when their smell and taste get equivalent smokepower points in my completely unscientific 1 – 7 smokestacks scale, this one falls just a smidge short on taste. And speaking of taste, out of all the flavors one can detect in Scarlet Fire, smoke stands proud and unashamed, which convinces me that this is a successful attempt at a great smokebeer, instead of a failed experiment that gets the last second formula adjustment by frugal brewers dumping in a bunch of liquid smoke. If I can get this in a bottle, it’ll quickly get added to the smokebeer tasting coming up at my apartment next year. Final score – 6 out of 7 –

By the way, this fall image will never be seen in Houston, we don’t do fall.

It appears that this beer is not even a distant memory at Victory. Learn more at:

http://www.victorybeer.com/