Name – Rogue XS Imperial Red Ale
Country – United States
Type – American Red Ale

Appearance – Pours a very deep red, almost brown, color with nice creamy looking tan head.  There was a bit of lacing on the glass.

Smell – Maltier than I expected it to be.  There are hops present in the nose but the malts and caramel like smell come forward way more.

Taste – Ah here are the hops.  Nice earthy type of hops with still a good amount of malts.

The next in the 8 oz XS bottles to hit shelves down here is the Imperial Red.  If you remember I was disappointed in the Imperial Stout when I tried that.  And Rogue does have reputation with me as being a major hit or miss brewery.  I either love it or hate it with most of their beers.  This one I haven’t wanted to try for quite awhile but couldn’t bring myself to buy the $18 ceramic bottle.  Now the nice like 8 oz bottle isn’t cheap at around $4 or $5 but I can convince myself on that more.  I love big red ales so I was expecting a hop attack but just never got it.  Is the bottle not fresh?  I don’t know.  While I enjoyed it overall it just wasn’t up to what I come to expect from something that is classified as an “imperial” anything.  If someone can tell me that it’s way hoppier fresh than I will believe you but this just kind of fell flat for that purpose of having imperial in the name.

Overall Grade – C