CS7 - Kingston Red Ale

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Permalink Reply by Tilt on May 3, 2011 at 11:21pm

Second one off the CS rank for me.

Those hop aromas leapt out of the bottle as the first "pfsst" escaped the cap - smells great!

Appearance - hazy copper with a 2cm off white head that settles to half a finger in a couple of minutes.  The haze looks similar to my SO5 beers but no visible sediment particles so feeling familiar and close to home!

Smell - Tangy citrus to me, not grapefruit but not orange, maybe tangerine? Those late hops give this beer a great start out of the blocks

Taste - the first taste is masked by the hop aroma and then gives way to a clean but slightly thin, sweetish and lower profile malt flavour.  This is followed up by a firm, edgy bitterness which cleans the tongue.  I'm not sure what the final flavour is but there's sort of a salty aftertaste - do you use any salt additons?

Mouthfeel - Thinner than I was expecting with the % of specialties but good for a red ale.

Overall - to me the middle range hop flavour and malt depth isn't as present as it could be - but I definitley appreciated this beer and say, if anything, don't change the late hopping!  Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Matt on May 4, 2011 at 7:42pm

I thought Id completely wrecked this beer. I was on a roll on Friday night playing the 'just one more' game, feeding beers into the freezer to drink 30mins later, one after the other... On Monday night I had a sudden sinking feeling and when I checked the freezer, sure enough, there was Kingston Red, covered in frost. Thank god for plastic though eh? She was swollen looking but no cracks or leaks, after a couple of days to thaw and 1000psi to re-equilibrate from the head space when I cracked her tonight she made a hiss! :D

 

The beer pours a clear reddish amber with medium carbonation, no head to speak of but I poured carefully to avoid the lees (fearing freeze-thaw lysis!). Aroma is of lemon and sweet malt, both subtle. I get the full spectrum of crystals in the taste and american hop citrus is there again in the flavour. Fermentation is clean, but the bitterness seems a bit subdued for my tastes. The body also seems quite thin to me, what gravity did the beer start and finish at?

Overall a clean and easy to drink red ale, feel free to cast off my (minimal) criticisms and blame it on my inept beer handling skills! Frankly Im amazed that not only was the beer carbonated, but actually pretty bloody tasty!  

Permalink Reply by Reviled on May 4, 2011 at 10:29pm

Not the first case swap beer to be frozen lol, I froze one of James' beers once!

Permalink Reply by John H on May 5, 2011 at 5:17pm

I liked this one. I got a citrusy malty aroma. Showing off my inept beery taste-buds here but - I got a complex toffee and raisins flavour from the malt followed by the citrusy hop finish followed by a clean palate - with nice tasting hoppy burps.

 

Thanks for sharing - yum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by vdog on May 5, 2011 at 7:15pm

Poured a nice amber with some hints of red in it, a slight haze, and small-ish white head. Aroma is citrus some undefined sweetness, very inviting. On the palate it seems all about the hops, without being unbalanced. I liked the carbonation and body on this, carbonation tending to the low side and body around medium made it very easy to drink. The bitterness for me was good, seemed like it was lower than the recipe would suggest but that's by no means a complaint - as I said, I thought it was pretty well balanced. Nice clean ferment too.

 

Overall another good one, cheers Jacko! 

Permalink Reply by Andrew on May 6, 2011 at 7:58pm

Cracked into this beer and it looked and smelt as per the other comments. Nice malty backbone with citrusy, tropical hops. Kind of a nice twist on the typical Red Ale. A little on the thin side but apart from that I,m really enjoying it. Thanks Jacko, nice Red Ale.

Permalink Reply by Matt Smith on May 8, 2011 at 10:51am

Enjoyed this last night after a chaotic 12 hour workday. Very replenishing !

Aroma of toffeeish malt and citrus hops in the background.  Flavours I got were of caramel, a touch of a raisiny dried fruit kinda thing and subtle citrus hop flavours coming through. Interesting reading the other comments because I perceived the body to be reasonably full, seemed just right to me, and the bitterness was firm and refreshing.

I'm interested to know the OG and FG to compare what my palette tells me about body etc.

Thanks Jacko !

Permalink Reply by JackoNZ on May 8, 2011 at 1:44pm

Thanks for the feedback guys, yep I'm surprised about it coming across as thin. I didn't pick that up when I was drinking it. 12% specs a 67c mash and a 1.013 FG should come out fairly full. OG was 1.051 so it's just shy of 5%. I only have 1 bottle left so plan to crack that once all the comments are in. Cheers guys.

Permalink Reply by Matt on May 8, 2011 at 4:54pm

I wrote my review during the first glass and found that by the time the beer came to temp a bit (ie second glass) the beer definitely filled out a bit (malt and body). Thanks again for sharing, left me thinking a red should def be on the short list for upcoming brews...

Permalink Reply by Tilt on May 8, 2011 at 9:17pm

No way I let it last long enough to get the bigger body on warming up with the second glass, sorry Jacko - bummed out that I missed the chance and teaches me for wolfing it down.

Permalink Reply by Stu McKinlay on May 9, 2011 at 9:58am

Lovely, well-balanced and very drinkable beer... great malt depth, very nice hop flavour and aroma hop, and a pretty clean ferment (but not at all one-dimentional). I could go through a few of these in a night.

There was a hint of astringency that I thought may have been from a little bit too much roast malt... the caraaroma could do that, on top of all those other cara/crystal malts. It could also be a little bit of a mash/sparge issue.

 

Slainte mhath! 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Martin Bridges on May 9, 2011 at 10:51am

Just realised I forgot to post about this last night.

 

Another good-looking beer, although throws a slight haze. I do like the Red Ale colours - that gorgeous chestnut brown with hints of ruby. Aroma is lovely and herbal - maybe that's the Ahtanum? Not a hop I know well.

 

Lovely balanced beer - hints of chocolate and fruit with a firm bitterness which persists in the finish.

 

Very nice beer. Cheers mate! I'll be down in Welly on Thursday & Friday this week - I really must say hello this time!

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