Superb off-dry Irish Red Ale (from Kilkenny) retains thickly creamed head as toasted amber graining enriches nutty cocoa powdering, dewy peat mossing and latent red-orange fruiting, picking up mild peppery hop pungency in robustly well-balanced fashion.
On tap at Onlet Taphouse, dewy peat anchored flagship Irish Red, acquiring roasted tobacco crisping, raw molasses bittering and mild caramel candied confection.
On tap at Pompton Craft House, dry Irish red ale collab with Hackettstown Fire Dept. drapes red and orange fruited spicing plus sweet floral daubs atop mild caramelized pale malting. Good stuff but not dewy enuff for peaty Irish red stead.
On tap at Hoovers Tavern, toasted amber grained caramel nuttiness picks up dried orange tease and mild hop astringency and could use more Irish red-like mossy dewiness to reach stylistic integrity.
Roasted barley-flaked rye entry tied to muted chestnut-walnut-pecan tandem, mossy brown tea earthiness and coarse phenol hop resins.
Totally Americanized Irish red ale utilizes Mosaic-Crystal-Sabro hops to create zestfully fruitier stylistic variant. Lime zest speckles red apple, brown pear, tangerine and clementine fruiting as well as dry perfumed spicing above tobacco-roasted cereal grain crisping. Backend citric-pined phenol astringency reminiscent of Mosaic-hopped IPA.
Dewy peat mossing centers rye-dried Irish red ale as tobacco roasted crisping, brown apple spoilage, brown tea herbage and molasses-draped caraway seed nuttiness reach modest dark cocoa stead.
On tap at Growler & Gill, dewy dry-spiced amber grain toasting and laid-back caramelized chocolate malting of an Irish Red Ale meets the piney red-orange fruiting of an American IPA. Below the surface, leafy hop musk contrasts dried-fruited pecan snag. A cheerfully wayward St. Patty’s Day treat.
On tap at Defiant, off-dry Irish Red balances barley-kilned pale malting, dewy tobacco-roasted earthiness and mild chestnut niceties in traditional Brit style. Distant red apple phenols and dried fig nuances stay behind.
