Ruby Red Prussia
4 Hands Brewing Co.

much better beer than gets credit for

22oz bottle. Poured out a sightly cloudy, golden orange color with a small, white head of foam. It smelled of citrus, wheat and grapefruit. Tart and acidic with grapefruit, orange and cracked wheat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pours like champagne with a lovely golden color & a pinky of pearl white head. Average head retention & lacing

S: Faint grapefruit notes & some lemon

T: Light graininess, a touch of lemon, grapefruit & subtle tartness up front. Tartness picks up a notch or two as this warms along with more lemon & a slight bit of soapy hops. Finishes tart with grapefruit & a bit of lemon

MF: Light bodied, beautiful carbonation

Nice summertime sipper, but needs more tartness & there is zero lactic flavor here, this is a little tame for my liking. Well worth a try

 

 

 

 

Bottle opened on 12.20.13

A - Pours a hazy light orange with a smaller white head that fades slowly.

S - Nutty, tangerine, skunky.

T - Tangerine, vomit, garbage.

D - Good carbonation with a light body.

O - Tottaly awful. Total garbage. Gross! Dumped this one ASAP!

Enjoyed out of a 22 oz brown bottle with no discernible dating on the bottle or label. Poured into a 16 oz nonic style tumbler.

Appearance - Aggressive pour barely coaxes a half finger of thin-looking head out of the bottle. Color is bone white and to it's credit, the meager head does stick around for a good few minutes before dissipating to nothing. No lacing to speak of. The body is a clear golden hue--clear to the point that I can see specific details of the things behind the glass. Faint stream of bubbles rises up from the bottom of the glass to help keep the head around for a few minutes. As I soon found out, this was the high point of the beer.

Smell - I don't expect a ton of robust aroma from this style, but I do expect a little more than the blandness you might expect from an AAL. If I try real hard, I can barely pick out some notes of tartness and maybe a tiny little hint of grapefruit. However, if I didn't know that grapefruit was part of this beer, I highly doubt that I would've been able to pick it out. Some faint wheaty aspect, like stale whole grain bread. Nothing really appealing about the smell at all that would make me return to this beer.

Taste - More of the same, with bland vague wheat being the only thing that is terribly detectible. Here the grapefruit is a little bit stronger, but it comes through more like the bitter notes you get on the aftertaste from drinking grapefruit juice, rather than the citric pungency that I love about the fruit itself. Some faint bitterness with nothing to really balance it makes for a pretty uninspired tasting beer. Not bad enough to drainpour, but at 3.5% ABV, there is just too much volume to consume to get anything resembling a buzz, and without any flavor, the buzz is the only possible benefit remaining.

Mouthfeel - Light bodied and thin, with moderate to low carbonation. Honestly, I think grapefruit juice has more body than this.

Overall, just a really disappointing beer. I like the BW style and I like grapefruit--I figured this beer was made for me to enjoy, and the giant jewel-like picture of a juicy grapefruit on the label only increased my hopes even more. Sadly, the label is probably the high-point of this beer, which is disappointing, as I'd been on a run of several tasty beers from 4 Hands. Would drink again if handed to me, but would definitely not purchase again, even at the bargain $4 price I paid for this bottle.