CleverRoot

2 2 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t ROGUE HONEY KOLSCH AND INDIAN FOOD: This pairing—akin to goat cheese and Sancerre, or Syrah and barbecue—has for me recently become an instant classic. It works for very much the same reason Indian cuisine tends to end in honey-soaked desserts like eggless honey cake or gulab jamun (deep-fried dough balls in honey); the deep burn from the spicy, soul-satisfying food can only be countered by the viscous, golden sweetness of a bee's nectar. This liquid gold truly is manna from heaven, and we have those tiny miracle workers to thank for that—honeybees. However, the honey isn't the only blessing. We've all seen the same two or three documentaries on Netflix emphasizing how important bees are to our planet. They serve to pollinate our crops, and without them, the world's agricultural land- scape would collapse. In an effort to support these prized pollinators (oh, and to also make the best beer possible), Rogue Ales & Spirits maintains more than 7.1 million honeybees on Rogue Farms. Rogue, founded in Oregon in the late 1980s, was one of America's first microbreweries. Later, in 2008, Rogue Farms was established, with an emphasis on terroir and the motto "Grow Your Own." Currently, Rogue maintains two farms; one in Tygh Valley, where about 200 acres of malt, barley and some rye is grown, and a second in Willamette Valley on the bank of the Willamette River, just west of Salem. There, ten varieties of hops are grown on 50 acres, in addition to pumpkins, marionberries, hazelnuts, cucumbers, corn and jalapeños; there's also a botanical garden, the seven million or so honeybees and two pigs to boot. With the exception of the pigs—they're just pets— all of this bounty ends up in their many beers (and even sodas), but 100 percent of that homegrown Oregon goodness goes into a selected handful of Rogue Farm beers. In addition to the Honey Kolsch, the ground-to-glass process is also applied to Rogue's Marionberry Braggot, 6 Hop IPA and the Good Chit Pilsner. Says Anna Abatzoglou, Rogue's Director of Marketing, "For our farm beers we use all the ingredients that we grow, so we're really proud to have this kind of control quality. Our brewmaster [John Maier] is very par- ticular; he hand selects the ingredients himself. It's more expensive to do it this way, but we know we can control the ingredients. We also know the soil, what the harvest is going to be like and every year the beers taste a little bit different, but we're really proud of that because this is beer that we've actually grown ourselves." If only all beer was grown this way. FARMING Rogue Honey Kolsch made with Rogue Farms wildflower honey. PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROGUE ALES & SPIRITS Buzzworthy BEER ROGUE FARMS IS THE SOURCE OF ALL THE GOOD THAT ROGUE ALES & SPIRITS IS BREWING by Jessie Birschbach Harvesting rye on Rogue Farms' Tygh Valley location. One of the hives supporting more than seven million honeybees on Rogue Farms. ■cr

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