Brewery Website: http://www.redhook.com
Type of Beer: American Amber / Red Ale
Alcohol Content: 5.9%
Beer Review -
Appearance: The color of this beer can best be described as a bright copper with chestnut hue. Poured with a fluffy, one-finger, off-white head that slowly settled down to a sticky film that forms a beautiful lace on the side of the glass.
Smell: Smell begins somewhat sweet with bready malts, caramel and toasted malts. Some citrus hops creep to help spice things up. There is a graininess in the finish. While the smell is more on the subtle side of things it’s still alluring enough to wet your appetite.
Initial Taste: The flavor picks up where the smell leaves off. Smooth and creamy mouth-feel with bready malts and sweet caramel coming up to bat first. Followed up quickly by a crisp toasted graininess. The hops make there way across the palate last with a subtle but welcome fruity and herbal bitterness. Finishes dry and crisp with some lingering malt sweetness.
Thoughts: Late Harvest Autumn Ale is Redhook’s fall seasonal. Redhook describes this beer as “easy-drinking, yet flavorful brew” and I think they accomplished exactly that. It’s a fall beer that’s NOT an Oktoberfest, which I find extremely refreshing as it seems every brewery either makes an Oktoberfest or pumpkin beer for the fall season. It’s very nice to have another option on the table. This still gives you the full bodied creaminess you find in your Marzan Oktoberfests but the main difference here is that it’s an ale with a flavorful hop complexity. Something that you rarely find in the other fall seasonals. This beer is robust enough to appease the hop heads yet subtle enough to drink as a session beer. Highly recommend.
Brewery Website: http://www.redhook.com
Type of Beer: Pilsner
Alcohol Content: 5.3%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pours a light golden yellow with perfect clarity. Gives a one finger bright white head that fizzles out pretty quickly leaving a small film over the beer.
Smell: The aroma is distinctly that of a pilsner, cereal grains with scents of spices and citrus fruit. This however has a nice sweetness to it as well, almost smells like honey and caramel. Very clean smelling.
Initial Taste: The initial flavor seems to be a mild sweetness given by the Caramel and Munich malts. Following the malt the standard pilsner flavor of toasted grains and subtle hop spiciness take over the palate. The finish was a bit dry and somewhat sharp. Leaving an extremely clean aftertaste. Quite refreshing.
Thoughts: I’ve always been a fan of Redhook brewery so when I heard they were going to be releasing a pilsner for summer I was quite excited. Being this is Redhook’s first attempt at brewing a pilsner style beer I believe they have done a very fine job. Lovers of pilsner style lagers will certainly enjoy this one. This is a true pilsner beer made with Czech (the creators of pilsner beer) hops which give it that distinct herbal bitterness that make this beer so clean and refreshing. Being a seasonal beer this is a perfect match for coming summer heat. I highly recommend.
http://www.smithwicks.ie
Type of Beer: Spiced Ale
Alcohol Content: 6.11%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pours medium amber color with a thick off-white, two-finger head. Head relaxed very slowing leaving behind some good lacing.
Smell: This beer has a very sweet aroma about it. There is no mistaking the sweetness is from the malts. There is very little spiciness to the smell. I noticed a little flowery hoppiness but there was no trace of the spices you normally smell in these winter brews.
Initial Taste: Just like it smells the flavor is mostly sweet malts with that side-note of flowery hops that help balance it out. The flavors are somewhat muted compared to others of this style. Little to no aftertaste.
Thoughts: This is a solid winter beer. It has a nice sweet flavor that is balanced by the flowery yet bitter hops. Missing from this beer are the spices you normally find in winter brews; cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc. If spicier brews are more your thing (like Abita or Anchor Steam) this may be too tame for you. However, because the flavors of this beer are so smooth and soft it makes for a Very easy to drink beer. This will definitely become my winter session beer. While not as flavorful and aromatic as some others this is certainly a terrific winter brew.
*You may notice there is a year (2009) in the title of this beer. This is because the recipe for this very special ale is different every year.
