Redhook Winterhook

Brewed by Redhook Brewery
Style: English Strong Ale
Woodinville, Washington USA

Average, average, average, average, average. What else is there to say? Pours fine, smells ok, tastes decent, but with no real character. "Hearty" it is not. Not distinguishable from a mediocre summer ale.

I like the dark color, but the aroma isn’t really there. The hop flavor comes through nicely. It taste more like a pale ale than a winter ale. It’s good though.

From a bottle - it pours a dark mahogany=hued beer with a light tan, fine-cuccled head of foam and a spicey aroma. Tastewise, this was a much better beer than I expected, and its flavor was retsina-like, with a cypress overtone from the aggresive hopping.

[bottle - 12 oz] Nice dark red pour with a puffy tan head. Had a hard time discerning what was in the aroma, but it seems mostly floral and hoppy. Not much else to it. Lots of hops in the taste right at the start. Almost tastes like hops mixed with slightly sweetened iced tea and a strong, bitter hop finish. Malts almost nonexistent. Bubbly and kind of sharp on the tongue. Definitely the hoppiest winter ale I’ve ever had.

This stuff has a really pretty dark reddish brown color and a slight, quickly receding light brown head. The aroma is of citrusy fruit. The flavor is pleasant, you can definitely tell it’s an ale by the more intense hopping, but there is no more bitter bite to this than a standard brown ale like Newcastle. This makes the beer really easy to drink. There are some bubbles on the palate too, which gives it a nice texture. Also, the malts are a little subdued, nothing spectacular comes out, but there is a nuttiness which is pleasant and wintry-seeming. This is a great ale for beginners.

I am on the fence about this one. I really want to like it but it has turpentine like bitterness. Now having said that it has a wonderful caramel malt and toffee taste as well. The aroma is floral hops and some pine. I have had better pine flavored ales and even though it’s not bad it could be better.

Bottle. Poured cola-brown with little head, but at least what little head there was stayed there for a while. Smell and flavor is of caramel, spice, and sour cherries. Watery finish leaves something to be desired. Decent, but I’m sure there are better winter brews out there.

From a bottle. Pours a clear brown with a decent sized white head. Good lacing. Aroma is dominated by this one spice that I can’t place..... sort of reminds me of a single needle from a christmas tree. You get a bit of that pine stuff in the flavor (and with each belch this beer creates) but the watery finish makes it very undesirable. Very boring and very thin. Looking at some of the other ratings of this, I’m having trouble figuring out where people get this myriad of different flavors from. All I get is water and pine.