Blueline IPA

Product Reviewed: Red Hook Blueline IPA
Brewed by: Red Hook Ale Brewery; Seattle, WA
Review by: David Brockington
Original Posted to Usenet: June 22, 1994

Initial Impressions:

Most of us in this forum know about Red Hook and their impact on the craft brewery movement in North America. Folks in Seattle, at least those somewhat acquainted with microbrews yet not terribly nerdy (like myself) about the whole thing, tend to place Red Hook along with the Huskies, Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft in the Pantheon of deities which define the very soul and guts of Seattle. (The Sonics made a brief appearance this Winter, but then they lost three games in a row and their owner turned into a total putz, but that's a different story.) Thus, when they finally decided to get off their laurels two years ago and launch the Blue Line, I was somewhat excited. Their Blue Line beers, with two exceptions, are only available in the Northwest (heck, maybe even in the Puget Sound Region for all I know) and only on tap. (The two exceptions being the occasional release of the original Ale, and Winterhook.)

The foundation of the Blue Line is their seasonal offerings, such as Winterhook. However, it also serves as a forum for experimentation, as this series has also included a Scotch Ale, an Oatmeal Stout, and a Nut Brown Ale. Recently, the Blue Line beer has been an IPA. Since IPA is one of my favorite beer styles, I was keen on giving Red Hook's interpretation a try. The first time I sampled it, I was both without my notebook and with a tired palate. Although I was underwhelmed at the time, I decided to give it a second chance a couple of weeks later when I encountered it at the Herbfarm Microbrew Festival in Fall City, WA.

The sample I had was in a six-ounce taster glass, from the tap. Hence, the only real manner in which I could have had this beer any fresher was to go to the Trolleyman itself. The pour produced a rather pale beer which was crystal clear -- not even the merest hint of haze. Due to the color and the geographic location of the brewery, I assumed that a West Coast interpretation of the IPA style was to follow. I was horribly misguided.

Nose:

The nose displayed a slight amount of hops, but aside from that, the bouquet of this beer was quite lacking.

Flavor:

The beer displayed a mid-full body going down. Hints of malt were balanced by equally sparse hints of hop bitterness. There were some hints of fruitiness in the profile. The beer was exceptionally clean in that there were no faults at all, although one generally expects Red Hook to produce fault-free beers in this day and age.

Final Analysis

Unfortunately, an IPA under any interpretation ought to be extremely assertive with the bittering hops, and I would argue (neither am I alone in this nor, obviously, was I the originator of this view) that a West Coast variation, noted by pale rather than copper shade and a higher gravity, ought to go heavy on the flavor and aroma hops as well as the bittering hops. (see Thomlinson in the last two _Brewing Techniques_ for an excellent description of this style and its nuances.) The Red Hook IPA came up short in hopping under any of the accepted interpretations of the style. Clearly, without an assertive hop profile at any stage of the hopping, this beer is hard pressed to live up to the expectations one has when quaffing an IPA. While I must reiterate that it was a clean and balanced brew, the hopping was subdued even for a standard Pale Ale, let alone an IPA.

** (out of 5)

Next Up:

Pike Place IPA
Leavenworth IPA
Fish Eye IPA (do you see a trend, yet?)

David Brockington, Seattle, USA
bronyaur@u.washington.edu