Red Duck Bell Hop
Red Duck

From Leura - no BB.

A - Black n tan, one finger head fades to spotty lace.

S - roast malts, light smoke.

T - quite dry, roast earthy malts, hint espresso, restrained, moderate bitterness. medium weight.

M - low carbonation.

O - a bit of a mixed bag. Dryness puts me off, and it comes across as somewhat underflavoured for a single drink, yet I doubt Red Duck expected folks to session this one out of a bottle. Odd to be so 'flat' for a 5.8% beer, as well.

Bottle: solid brown 330mL bottle with a very stylish (and cute) label. I particularly like the "Does not contain any real ducks" label.

Appearance: a clear but heavy auburn-brown colour with limited fine carbonation. A one-finger thick beige head slowly drops with good lacing over a minute. Looks good!

Aroma: roast malts with some nuts and earthy hops. Something a bit sweet that I can't put my finger on.

Taste: bread and biscuit malts with those earthen qualities coming through too. A small amount of floral hops as well. Nicely done.

Aftertaste: the earth and malt becomes a bit of a heavy fug in the back of the mouth. Not unpleasant, just a bit different - definitely not a sessional.

Mouth feel: medium in body with a lower carbonation. Not a sessional beer, more of a sipper, but that said I could have a couple in an evening.

Overall: feels like a cross between a heavy red ale and a porter - quite a nice combination. Worth the price too at AU$110 a case.

After some disastrously crazy beers from Red Duck, it's nice to see them try their hand at something less likely to offend. 330ml bottle purchased from Slowbeer.

Pours surprisingly light and clear: a deep red-brown colour that's clearly transparent in the light—perhaps a little too dark for a red ale, but probably only halfway between a red ale and a porter. It could be around IBA territory, which they seem to acknowledge on the bottle. Head is a fine accumulation of pale off-white bubbles—these form larger bubbles, and then dissipate to a film. Lacing is speckled and ambiguous. Body is quite light. Looks decent enough, although the colour is surprising.

Nose is mildly roasted, with some pleasant uptilt from the hops. The sweetness from the malt mingles to give a musk character and a hint of crushed vegetation. Some grainy notes are pleasant as well, giving a mild toasted bread underpinning to everything. It's nice stuff.

Taste is mild but balanced: pleasant flat roasted malt provides a biscuity basis, on which are layered faint hints of floral hoppiness, giving some spikes in flavour content, but not any overpowering bitterness. Some vegetative characters do round out the back palate, however, giving a crispness that you wouldn't expect in your average porter. It is, as they say on the label, very well-balanced.

Feel is smooth and light, with just the right amount of fine carbonation.

Overall, I'm really very happy with this. I'm often pretty harsh on Red Duck when their all-or-nothing experiments go awry (see, for example, Smells Like A Pony), but I'm glad to see that their more balanced and more traditional beers are as good as this one. Very solid stuff.

Pours black with brown highlights and a fading head.
Nose shows complex roasted malt with coffee and oatmeal notes. Also some light spicy hops and nutty notes.
Flavours also include hefty roasted and nutty malt along with some spicy and grapefruit-like hops.
Could use more carbonation.
Pretty solid American style porter.