I’m loving this seasonal by New Belgium! A rich malty beer with a great, interesting hop character an a beautiful deep red color. I’d kill to get that kind of color in my Irish Red.
It is really tasty. It’s got a nice mild roast flavor-probably a small amount of roasted barley which helps with the color as well. (they do list roasted barley on their website for Red Hoptober). I’m really liking the different styles they are going with for their seasonals-for awhile they were all slight variations on pale ale, with maybe a wit in the summer.
I bought a sixer and was extremely disappointed with the first one. I thought the hop character was kind of mouth-coating and oily, really gross. I figured it was the El Dorado hops that were doing it. But I was pretty stuffed up at the time.
I’ve enjoyed the rest of the six pack since then, but it’s still not as good as I was expecting.
Didn’t enjoy it at first. The name Hoptober made me think of a hoppier Octoberfest type beer. This was at a bar, so I couldn’t read the label or anything first. So my expectations were that, and this is something else entirely. It did have a bit of a roasted barley flavor to it. It was unique, but I would probably pick a different beer next time. Not bad, but not great IMO.
Pretty much my response, too. I expected more of an Oktoberfest and was really caught off guard.
