A Blonde With Some Substance

"Blonde Ale." Oh, yummy.

To a a veteran of almost twenty years of non-mainstream beer and fourteen years of microbrews, able to knock back beers with names like "Acidic Lambic" (truth, from Cantillon, had it in March) without batting an eye, the words "Blonde Ale" are a big red flag. The fact that it comes from Redhook, the first micro to sell their soul to the megabrew devils (25% of Redhook is owned by Anheuser-Busch and A-B distributes their beer), only adds to the dread. I admit to prejudice; I think this beer is going to be not only blonde, but bland.

Redhook Blonde Ale looked to me to be a pandering beer, trying to hit a broader market that micros have so far been unable to hit, with the possible exception of Sam Adams Boston Lager. A Blonde Ale seems a desperation move, a desperate dumbing down to try to find the volume numbers Redhook urgently needs to make.

Redhook's line in general doesn't much impress me, save for the Blackhook Porter and the Double Black coffee stout, both of which are quite nice, but hard to find here in PA. To hear that they came out with a Blonde Ale last year was neither surprising or exciting. But here I was with a very fresh sample (five weeks out of the brewery), so I blanked my mind and gave it a fair shot.

It pours a slightly copperish golden body with a fast-fading white head. It looks pilsner-like, the ultimate goal of "light" ales: don't look like an ale! I get a really faint whiff of malt and some kind of white wine hints, but not much off the nose.

Well, hey, that's actually not too bad. A middling amount of body and a really nice refreshing cut to the quaff itself. That's probably coming from the wheat and a skillful hopping. There's a mild, overall yet unobtrusive fruitiness to it as well, a subdued evidence of its ale heritage. The "aftertaste" is pleasant as well, kind of juicy and mouth-watering and 'have another.' This is disappearing from my glass surprisingly fast, and it's tasting better all the time. I was ready to tank this one, but I'm impressed. Still not getting much off the nose, but a beer can't be everything, I guess.

I'll have to say: not bad. I could be happy drinking this if the company was good and the food was fresh. And that's not such small praise, really. This probably will appeal to a slightly larger market, but not that much larger. I could get almost anyone to try this, and most of them would enjoy it. Something to be said for that. All the same... given my druthers, I probably would opt for something a bit more substantive.



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