The Dedly Blog

Beer In Review: Here Comes The Sun

Well, the skies have finally cleared here in the Northeast, just in time for July 4th weekend. Ol' Mother Nature's cranking up the heat this weekend so you're gonna need a beer that fits the summer weather. And since we'll be celebrating our independence with BBQ's and fireworks, it only makes sense that our beer be American made. Give your imports the weekend off. And instead of drinking the swill that we've been stereotyped for, try having a real American beer, something our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) would be proud of.

You can go with Sam Adams, after all the guy was indeed a patriot who helped lead the Resistance in Boston. His brother may have gone on to be president, but Sam was a brewer! How cool is that?!

But Sam doesn't need help selling beer. I don't have the figures, but I'd be willing to guess that they're the #4 brewer in this country in terms of volume. Feel free to correct me. So, I'd like to draw some well deserved attention to Red Hook. The company was founded in 1981 in Seattle, though it wasn't until 1982 that beer actually began to flow from the brewery. Why Seattle and not say Milwaukee or St. Louis? Apparently, Seattlites drink almost as much beer as they do coffee. With all that rain... With breweries on either coast and a distribution deal with the devil, errr uhhh the King, Red Hook can typically be found throughout the US.

Red Hook has an excellent line of beers. I'll focus on the others later. Today, it's all about their summer beer: Sunrye. This beer is a bit of a departure from the typcial Red Hook fare in that its on the low end of the bitterness scale, probably due to Mount Hood (Oregon!) and Hersbucker hops. "Brewed with 6 barley malts and a touch of rye", this is a light-bodied beer. You could assume that from its golden-yellow color, but if you're drinking it out of the bottle at a BBQ, which I highly recommend, you wouldn't know it until you actully drank it. At 4.7% ABV, it's not a watered down light beer. But if you're worried about calories, it has a mere 131.

As for food, Sunrye seems to complement most summer fare. As I said earlier, it's great for the usual BBQ menu (hamburgers, hot dogs, even chili). I've also had it with fish (a cajun seasoned tilapia) and chicken (a peanut and soy sauce mixture with broccoli).

Disclaimer: Red Hook is a publicly traded company (HOOK). Eager to own stock in a brewery, I purchased shares of the company in 2003 for my speculative portfolio.

posted by DED at 10:40 AM

 Mike said...

Sounds like a nice summer beer.

I'd love to try it, but I've never seen it before.

7/02/2006 10:41 AM