REVIEW 156: RUAIDRI IRISH RED ALE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Hatboro, PA!)

BREWERY:  Crooked Eye Brewery

STYLE:  Irish Red Ale

ABV:  5.0%

PURCHASE:  Draft (60-oz. pitcher), $12.00

SERVING:  Said pitcher, poured into chilled pint glass. Not particularly heady from the tap. However, from the pitcher to the glass, a normal pour produced a head of two full inches. A slower pour actually got three. Very good retention. 

APPEARANCE:  Auburn-henna-mahogany body with a beige-cream head. No real visible bubbling. Prominent lacing, though it was more of a partial blanket than actual laces.

BOUQUET:  Malty, with strong presence of caramel and appleskins (like Newcastle). Lightly hopped. Seeming hints of toffee, cinnamon, and possibly allspice. 

PALATE:  Average body in terms of fillingness. Carbonation is mostly tame, but can sneak up on you. Early on, highly malty but doesn't pack a whole lot of punch overall. Fills out toward the end. Tea-like finish, with an immediate aftertaste that is equal parts dry, bitter, and yeasty, as well as heavy on the appleskin. As with the aroma, there seems to be a trace of subdued cinnamon or allspice, and becomes witbier-like at the far end with a placebo note of coriander. This is supposedly brewed with toffee, but I couldn't really make that out as I seemed to in the aroma.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  "Ruaidri," is the Scottish-Gaelic origin of the name "Rory." It means "Red King." Fitting for an Irish . . . red . . . ale.

The beer itself is a noble effort, if not exactly royalty. I rank it accordingly.




GRADE:   B-

Rory Macdonald, the "Red King" of UFC.