Newport Storm Thunderhead Irish Red

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Pours with a frothy, light tan, initially two-finger thick head that leaves some lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer is a deep, burnt red color, that shows a brilliantly clear, concentrated cranberry color when held up to the light. The aroma is quite malty with notes of berries, hints of roast malt, ample toasted grain, swarthy biscuit notes and a dusty crushed soda cracker notes. There is also a fair amount of hop aromatics here though. Aromas of sweet citrus and again some fruit notes that accent the berry aromatics.

Lightly sweet, but has a large malt presence in the form of caramelized malt sugars and ample toasty, deeply bready, biscuit-like malt character. A supporting hop presence provides flavors of orange peel, zesty grapefruit, a touch of astringent pine, and a solid, slightly biting bitterness in the finish. The malt and hop notes combined to provide an unspecified berry-like flavor here, which helps to round things out. The malt character and the hop bitterness tend to linger on in the palate quite a bit, but this beer is still fairly light. It has a medium heft to it, but only just enough, as it remains quite drinkable.

I don't typically think of hops when I think of an Irish-Red, but I definitely think this beer is better for their presence. The hops might be a bit distracting if there was not such a large malt presence, but luckily there is and I really like how rich the malt character is. Despite this the beer is quite drinkable. A clean beer that drinks much better than I might have guessed.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Poured a dark amber-red color with a disappointing head that only provided basic lacing. Aroma was funky (butter and caramel?). The flavor was of caramel malts that was slightly bitter and accompanied by significant hopping (this tasted more like a dark amber ale than a true irish ale). Nothing to seek out here.