Beer – #199 – Garage Projects – L’il Red Rye

I start tonight with a beer that’s been in the fridge for a while, because I’ve been looking forward to it, it’s a Garage Projects – L’il Red Rye.

Brewed by Garage Project In the style of an Amber Ale and they do come from the newly shaky city of Wellington, New Zealand. Garage Projects say this is an “American hopped Red Rye Ale”

A 650ml bottle, 6.5% ABV– or 3.3 standard drink units. Only available in bottles in NZ 🙂

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Humulus Lupulus, the wolf bine can be fierce, but L’il Red Rye, the grain at the heart of this beer, has more than enough character to run with the wolves. Amarillo and Simcoe hops combine with the earthy spice of rye, and the richness of Munich and caramel malts to create a beer that’s well worth a short cut through the woods.

Red or Amber – one means stop one means go faster, no wait that’s traffic signals….

Initial aroma is sweet and earthy. Pours a brilliant ruby dark red with a decent full body head, aroma as it is settles to a slight grassy hop note.

And the flavour is fair cracking, a lovely burst of bitter and a wonderful mouthfeel of malty sweetness to follow, the bitterness making a welcome return at the end. Delightful.

As a counterpoint to tonight’s music the Jack White Blunderbuss Album this is really nice.

One thing that you could pick on is that seems to be overly carbonated or there are some very active bubbles in the beer. I’m really never sure if I like that or not, I think that on the whole probably not so much.

But the fact is that this is a pretty awesome beer, and I’m going to be miffed if I’ve missed out on getting this again. This delivers a hearty amount of subtle bitterness, and a goodly amount of malts to offset it, and it carries itself the whole journey. I think I like that.

The pdubyah-o-meter says easily 8.5 making this just shy of great and better than very good, or to put it another way, get some in you’ll not be disappointed. It’s a honest beer, honestly delivered and would be a great companion for a long night in watching sports and telling stories.

So far then this might be slightly less than the Red Rocks, or the Pernicious Weed but I think if they weren’t available and this was I’d still be smiling and think I’d scored.