Lagunitas Imperial Red
Alcohol by Volume: 7.5%
Intro: Lagunitas likes to make intense beers; they aren’t much for session ales. Located in Petaluma, CA, they fit right in with the rest of the great CA breweries sending their beer up here to the PNW. I hope to visit and thank them someday.
Description: This red ale offers the best of both worlds. A medium bodied malt base has some toasty sweet caramel tastes and a little brown sugar. Balanced by a big hop bitterness. Pine and citrus hop flavors mix perfectly with the malt. Balanced and very drinkable. The 7.5% ABV allows this to be intense, but not over the top.
Verdict: Buy It
Availability: Six-packs. Website says it is released in August…but I bet you can still find some around.
Brewery Website
Ratebeer Info
BeerAdvocate Info
Commercial Description/Press Release:
Big on the spicy, skunky hops, bigger on the rich red malt. A variation of our original 1993 “Lagunitas Red”. Still in the handy 6-pack carriers for your enjoyment.
Approx. Release – August 2009
In the interest of full disclosure to satisfy the FTC’s new law, this review was of a sample bottle received from the brewery.
i stopped here on a drive up from SoCal, probably not worth a stop (althoghh one lady was loading cases into here prius), its an actual brewery…no pub, but the guys were cool,
Pat’s right that there’s no pub there, but Lagunitas has a nice taproom and really cool beergarden thing now. I’m not sure how long you went by, but the new setup has only been around a month or two I think. They had some pretty great stuff on tap when I was there and one nice barrel-aged cask of some sort sitting up on the bar. If you’re heading up 101 and you’re a fan of Lagunitas beers I’d definitely recommend that you stop in.
kolbe, yea, i was there in May, and they definitely seemed busy doing something (i thought they were only brewing, who knew?)
Even all the way across the country in Florida, I have become a big fan of Lagunitas. Hopefully I will be able to find this one on the shelves somewhere.
Funny, but the Cappuccino Stout was supposed to have been released in August as well, but never made it this far North apparently… What gives? I am glad the Brown Shugga arrived though!