Deschutes Red Chair IPA

Brewed by Deschutes Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Bend, Oregon USA

Clear amber pour with a creamy whitish head. Aroma is sweet and hoppy. Tupelo honey, light citrus hops, and a hint of tropical fruit. Flavor is a bit maltier than I expected...caramel and honey. Floral hops are present, but not all that hoppy.

Nice aroma but smells slightly barley wine like...you know, the higher alcohol sweeter taste/smell. Mouthfeel is relatively light and crisp with a hoppy citrusy fllavor. Not a bad IPA....worth $6.79 for a bomber.... dunno about that...

redish in color. I thought it was another win for Deschutes. I liked it and will be drinking alot more of it.

12 oz bottle pours amber with some off white head into a tulip. Crisp, hoppy aroma with floral/honey sweetness, bready malts, seems thin. Nearly identical taste profile: crisp hops, very little astringency, quite floral and herby with some lemon peel. Underlying tone of bready malts. Kind of a muted finish and aftertaste. Fizzy mouthfeel, low-medium body, medium level of carbonation. Just ok.

Bottle at toncatcher’s 2. Light orange color. Nice hoppy aroma. Long boil bitterness. Easy to drink.

12 oz bottle with a best by of 04/01/10 thanks to LtDan. This is indeed a different beer than the Red Chair IPA. Medium sized off white head over a clear, effervescent orange body. Aroma is real fresh hops, citrus, grass, sticky, sawdust, caramel, pine cones. Taste is malt, caramel, spicy and somewhat herbal hops followed by a pine like finish. Dry, doesn’t feel the 6.4% ABV, but is a decent pale. A bit thin, doesn’t taste big (again, a pale, right?). Lively bubbles.
Earlier Rating: 8/3/2009 Total Score: 3.7
Bottle. Pours with a large, slightly off-white head. Hazed orange body. Aroma of orange, orange peel, pine needles/twigs, and caramel. Sticky aroma. Taste is pine needles and some kumquat, with hay and caramel backing. This isn’t an extremely fresh bottle, but the hops are still all there. That said I am sure this is actually a ton better on tap; I feel the hops wanting to kick me in the face. Some herbal, caramel notes left behind. Light fruit. Easy drinking beer here. Creamy carbonation. Very solid IPA, need a fresh, dry hopped version!

With a large prevalence of extremely hoppy IPAs, it is quite easy to forget that IPAs can also have a high ratio of toasty malts to compliment their exuberant hops. It’s also easy to forget that hops can offer esters beyond the west coast pine, fir, and grapefruit that are most commonly associated with the American IPA style. Hops are capable of herbal, floral, earthen, and tropical delights, to name a few. Deschutes Brewing is based in Bend, Oregon and they offer a wonderful alternative to the largely prevalent American IPA style. Simply called the Red Chair IPA, she sports a bounty of malts to compliment her bounty of hops.

As her name implies, her appearance is all shimmering reds, ambers, garnets, and polished coppers. Her head reflects the jewel beneath with faint copper and blood-orange hues that linger as a thin blanket. No haze, she shines bright before my eyes. Glass in hand; I partake of her equally bright nose. Malts and hops meld together in a medley of toasted breads, caramelized sugars, and fresh pine needles weighing heavy under glistening morning dew. There is a faint wisp of white grapefruit and lemon, but only as freshly spritzed esters. Sweet and dry, her nose hits clean and leaves clean. Obviously not a big IPA, I am nonetheless intrigued by her promise of vibrant sessionability. The first quaff is sweet and clean, crunching with caramelized sugars and thinly sliced toast teetering on the edge of burnt while the middle is where her heart and soul lay. Grapefruit, prickly pine needles, and lemon spritzer hold her crunchy sweetness together for a very clean quaffing experience. Her mouthfeel and body is a bit thin but not detrimentally so. My glass empties quite quickly; a wholly sessionable malty IPA, Red Chair was exactly what the doctor ordered.

The more malty IPAs I taste, the more I am able to appreciate this style of IPA more. It just further proves to me that styles are to be taken with a good dose of critical disregard. Grab yourself a chair, it doesn’t have be red, crack open a bottle, sit back, and enjoy life’s most beautiful treasure.

From bottle. Pours hazy orange/amber with medium frothy white head. More fruit than expected, grapefruit, delicious citrus of NW hops that is their signature with pale ales, but more malt backbone than expected. Not their strongest IPA, but a decent drinker. Bitter finish, but easily a session brew if in a different size. Nice, but not great.