Ruthless...Now That's What I'm Talking About

If you judge a beer by the label alone this is one of the best beers ever made.  The imagery on this label is a work of art.  In a lot of respects it has a lot in common with the Boulevard Wheat Wine label with a character wielding a scythe in a crop field.  In this scenario the grim reaper is replaced by a lonely ominous looking woman.  I’m not an art aficionado so I don’t know the principles that make this image so profound but the colors and imagery are powerful.  Did I mention the name is Ruthless Rye?  SOLD!  What can we expect from this voodoo wrapped elixir of rye and hops?  A possession?

 Opening the bottle I almost expected an evil spirit to emerge and levitate me across the room.  Well that didn’t happen.  The brew pours a copper color with a smaller than expected head.  Looking at the body of the brew it “looked” very thick.  I was watching the CO2 bubbles rise to the top of the glass and noticed some of them were stuck, suspended in mid-beer.  I don’t remember seeing this before so maybe Sierra Nevada really did pack some evil spirits in here.  The nose was very promising with good grapefruit aromas complimented by some faint rye spice in the background.  The mouthfeel seemed somewhat thick giving the impression of this brew being undercarbed.  The brew starts with some very brief sweetness and then dives into rye spiciness.  The spiciness is immediately replaced by big hop character that proceeds into the finish.  The hop character had a very young grassy character without much of the grapefruit from the nose.  The hops linger quite a while in the finish and the rye spiciness starts coming back at this point.  Although there was a big hop character this brew wasn’t very bitter.  My overall impression of this brew can be summed up by saying it was a little rough.  But what can you expect from a brew named Ruthless Rye?  Maybe I’m getting soft?  Even with the roughness I did enjoy this brew and can say this is a very unique offering.
 

Cheers!