Red Ale

Our fresh hopped Red Ale has been getting some great feedback from some of my friends who have had the chance to try it. It is my normal Red Ale recipe with some fresh Cascade hops from a friend of a friend's garden.

The hops give it a Pacific Northwest style ale bend instead of fitting squarely into an Irish Red or American Amber category. I like it a lot, but not sure I like it better than the original recipe. I would call it a tie. I like the creamy head that stays with the entire glass of beer, but I wanted it to be a little deeper red (it is more orangy red). It all tastes the same, but when you create a recipe you have a particular idea of what it should be when it grows up.

I like a little maltier and/or hoppier beer for the fall, and this definitely fits the bill. It isn't a winter warmer, however. I would like to brew a winter warmer (English Old Ale, or perhaps the German Alt) this winter, but next up is our yearly debacle called Pumpkin Ale. For some reason, my brother and I seem to make a major mistake every year (something different each time) on this beer. It is an advanced beer with probability of stuck mashes and low yields, but we also have made a fair amount of bone head mistakes. At least every year the beer is drinkable (more or less), but we have learned a lot from doing it year after year after year. Maybe this year will be the year we nail it.

Right now, the Red Ale is in its prime, and I highly recommend trying it if you can get over to my brewery in the next month.