Before I get to the beer, I'll spend a little time talking about my sentimental association with the RedHook brand. There was a comic book in the 1990's written and drawn by Peter Bagge, and published by Fantagraphics (of Seattle, WA.), called, for lack of a better title, "Hate", that concerned the adventures of proto-'90's slacker-type Buddy Bradley and his friends in the Seattle sub-cultures of that era. I'm enclosing a portion of page two of issue one from 1990, which had a great impact on me when it was first released, right around when I decided to try and be a cartoonist myself. In fact, a story I wrote and almost finished drawing was based on this stylistic conceit, the point of view interview with the narrator, and it would've been the debut of my roman a clef character, Lenny, (the title: "Lenny: an Introduction" also smelled of a J.D. Salinger reference. I know, I'm insufferable.) who would be my main character/doppelganger/etc., in my comic book which might have been called "Dateline: The Blues", or maybe it would've been "Argyle Fist." We shall never know.
By the way, Bagge took some shots at Minneapolis in that story, also. Read that here….
It was still a few years before I got into craft beer, and once I did jump into the beer world, I remembered the beer Buddy B. drank in Hate #1 and simply had to check it out, since IPAs were my thing (and still are). It was all right back then, and is disappointing now. IPAs have certainly changed in the past 20-some years. Ballard Bitter isn't a beer I'm ever going to choose to throw in my shopping cart these days. (Actually, I'm pretty sure it no longer exists.) I'll always have that attachment, though, because memory means a lot. There are a lot of great coffee stouts these days, but Red Hook Double Black was my first. And you never forget your first.
On with the beer:
Appearance: Clear, light golden hue, snowy white head, long-lasting, lace-leaving.
Aroma: Big citrus, lemon, lime and orange, with some pine behind. Beautiful. Manna for the Hop-head.
Taste: Hop bitterness attack at the top, fading softly back. Very mellow malt, clean and crisp. Lean-bodied, light finish, hops cling on, though the bitterness slides off eventually.
Okay, it's 4%, I can drink a few before getting buzzed, but the hop flavor isn't furled back, so that's good. This isn't my normal style, but damn, if you can't drink it. Citrus-y hops hang in there for the long haul, and you never forget this is a nice ol' IPA. Nothin' wrong with it.
