REVIEW: Green Flash Hop Head Red

Today's beer, like Monday's Ruination, is another hoppy west coast brew. But this one is a red IPA. Not sure I've ever had one of those. I imagine this will add the caramel-like malty flavors of an amber ale to the big citrusy hop flavors of a west coast IPA. This looks promising. To the beer!

Hop Head Red absolutely earns its name. It pours a deep dark ruby red with abundant amounts of hop haze. It's capped by two fingers of resilient off white head. A quite attractive beer indeed. 

As I'm sure you've noticed, in the past few weeks I've tried to mix things up with the photography here on the blog. Nothing against my beer label table, but everything was starting to feel a little stale. Photographing beer is a bit of a challenge. I get three maybe four chances to get the right shot before the head completely recedes. I hope you guys are enjoying the different approach! Also, I just noticed this, how odd is it that the logo on the pint glass and the logo on the label, are similar yet wildly different. Bizarre.

There's a good amount of citrusy hop on the nose. It's backed by roasty carmel notes. There's also a bit of an earthy resinous hop character in there as well.

Hop Head Red is pretty robust and big bodied. The malt bill here is nice and complex. Bready and roasty with hints of carmel and toffee. A spicy earthy hop character comes out mid-palate. There are also hints of dark fruit, cherry and kind of a tart berry flavor. Hop Head Red finishes with a nice lingering hop bitterness.

Hop Head Red is a really interesting spin on an IPA. Green Flash has created one of the more surprising and complex IPAs I've had in a while. This one is absolutely worth checking out. Whether you're a fan of Amber Ales, IPAs, or just good beer in general.

HD