Redhook IPA

Brewed by Redhook Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Woodinville, Washington USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

Poured a crystal clear orange color with a fine lace head. Aroma was of light hops and faint orange. Mouthfeel is creamy with tingle of fine carbonation. Taste is light orange peel witha moderate hop bite finishing toa clover honey sweetness. Lasting honey aftertaste with a warm alcohol burn. Balanced beer with balanced taste.

Straw colored poor with a healthy white head. Aroma is mild hops, lemon, grass. Nice smooth slightly bitter with a dry after taste. Light hops. Very nice drinking beer. Lacks the hops that I like in an IPA I may be partial to the East Coast Red Hook but I feel that the Portland brewery is not as good as the the Portsmouth brewery. Nonetheless I am a big supporter of Red Hook. Nice beer.

Bottle. Pours a golden honey color, very thin and light. Huge bubbley head with the pour. Citrus notes in the nose as well as pine, grass, and a malt finish. Flavor is very bland and mild. The hop bitterness is almost undetectable. There is no malt background or anything. Palate is very thin and bubbly.

Tap. Looks like pretty much all other IPAs, maybe a little lighter. Grassy and citrus hops in the nose, and some dryness. Very dry in the mouth. A little bit of citrus hops, but that’s pretty much it. There’s almost no malt to balance it off. Goes down crisp, but bitter. It’s pretty one dimensional, but not very deep. Not a good combination.

Light tan color, mine poured with no head. Some citrus in the nose. Thin body with plenty of hop bite. Bitterness stays with you for a minute. The flavor is grapefruit & pine, no malty sweetness to speak of.

Pours clear light golden with significant carbonation. Aroma is primarily pine/citrus. Flavor starts dry and lightly metallic, then moves to a light maltyness where the floral bits appear briefly, then finishes sharp and citrus with a lingering bitter. Decent IPA in broad distribution.

UPDATED: FEB 17, 2006 13.2.06. 12oz bottle, poured effervescent amber-gold into a shaker glass. Small, white, rapidly diminishing head. Pleasant, crisp aroma: lightly sweet citrus and faint banana. Served cold, the mountfeel is clean and refreshing with fairly substantial body and good carbonation. Surprisingly good balance of pine/citrus hop bitterness and caramel malt sweetness. Finish is briefly bitter (mostly pine) and becomes mildly sweet. This is <em>bizarre</em>.... The first bottle I had out of this 12pack (drunk from the bottle with a meal) struck me as uninspired, unbalanced, and even a little offensive. It’s like I’m drinking an entirely different beer.

14.2.06. Having another bottle from the same 12 pack. Tastes much like I remember from the bottle before my original review: flat, bitter hops with very little character. Don’t know what happened to the bottle I reviewed last night to make it so much better. Revising my rating to a sort of average of the two bottles.

15.2.06. Fourth bottle was just as uninspired as the third. Don’t know what made that one bottle so much better. Lowering the scores again.

UPDATED: AUG 10, 2006 On tap, hoppy/ herbal aroma. Light body. Slightly thin, but not bad. Slightly smokey aroma from the bottle. The thing I liked the most was that it wasnt hopped through the roof like some IPA’s. Smoother than I was expecting. Better than what I was expecting, but I dont think I’ll go for it again very soon.