Long ago in the land of craft beer — we’re talking the salad days of brewpubs here, before the arrival of the hazy IPA changed life as we knew it — a typical flight looked like a rainbow. Rather than, say, three different juicy hop bombs and a pilsner, you had your pale ale or IPA, your wheat ale, your blonde ale, your brown ale or stout or porter and your red ale. Some of those have stayed put on most breweries’ draft list, in one form or another. But the red ale? Who is she?
A red ale is a happy medium in liquid form. It’s got more character than a light, crisp lager, but it’s lighter than a big, roasty stout and more balanced than a hop-forward IPA. Malt and hops work in beautiful harmony to make a red ale sing. If you dare to like both hops and malt and are tired of choosing between the two, it’s high time you try a red ale.
Speaking of timing, St. Patrick’s Day is an especially apt occasion for red ale. You’ll likely see a bit more of the stuff around this time of year. That’s because this beer style’s journey begins in Ireland.
Red Ale From the Emerald Isle
Roasted unmalted barley is a real Irish signature in beer. It’s what makes Irish stout Irish stout, with that satisfying depth of flavor and dry finish that keeps even a malt-forward beer from feeling too heavy. Toward the end of the 19th century, English Bitters or Extra Special Bitters were all the rage in England with their balance of rich malt character, hop bitterness and sessionable low ABVs. Ireland decided to put its own stamp on the style by dialing back that bitterness a touch and adding some of that balance back in with the gentle astringency of roasted malt. That roasted malt is used in just a small amount alongside the ale’s base of pale malt, resulting in the red ale’s color and a flavor profile that’s biscuity, a little toasty and maybe slightly caramelly alongside some earthy or floral hops.
Some commercial Irish red ales are still pretty prevalent today, like O’Hara’s Irish Red Ale or Smithwick’s Irish Ale. But for the most part, the red ale waned in popularity over time and was more recently revived in both the Irish and American craft beer scenes.
Red Ale Reaches America
As with most beer styles that are now staples of American craft beer, the red ale started out with homebrewers and early professional brewers here in the United States, and these brewers would have stuck to the Irish script except for potentially using American ingredients. Think of the way brewers began making English-style IPAs but with American hops and then continued pushing hop intensity forward to create distinctly American IPAs.
Some American breweries embraced a classic Irish-style red ale, offering one of the few American craft examples for lovers of this style. Take, for example, Asheville’s Highland Brewing. Owner, president and CEO Leah Wong Ashburn says Highland’s been brewing their Gaelic Ale for 32 years.
“‘Beer’ was often limited to light lagers [when we first brewed Gaelic Ale],” she notes. “In contrast, Gaelic Ale was reddish…flavorful, malty, gently hopped, richer and local, which was unheard of in Asheville. But it was approachable and consistent, and the local brewery began to stir up a fan base.”
Gaelic Ale helped put Highland Brewing on the map, which in turn helped put Asheville on the country’s craft beer map. The beer has remained a favorite for over three decades and counting — it even has a mascot, Scotty, a nod to Asheville’s early Scotch-Irish settlers who Highland recently resurrected to embrace Asheville pride as the city continues to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It’s pretty rare for such an important, beloved American craft beer to be a red ale.
You’ll find other more traditional, Irish-style red ales from long-running breweries like Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland and Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City. As the style began to evolve in the hands of American brewers, we saw a flood of amber ales, plenty of which are still kicking around today. Amber ales are indeed red ales, but instead of more intense malt additions like roasted unmalted barley, ambers would include crystal malts for a flavor that’s caramelly and graham-forward, but typically lighter than something called a “red ale,” and often more tipped toward hop bitterness, too. You can find those toast, graham and biscuit malt notes in styles like German märzens and even more malt-balanced American IPAs, too, but a quintessential red ale walks a signature tightrope between rich yet crisp malt depth and hop bitterness.
Red Ale Reinvented
Of course, American brewers can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to riffing on classic styles, and American beer drinkers are lucky for that fact. And in true U.S.A. craft beer fashion, a lot of red ales do crank that hop character up even past an amber ale, landing in “hoppy red ale” or “red IPA” territory.
Head brewer at upstate New York’s West Kill Brewing Patrick Allen found inspiration not so much in Irish red ale as he did in more malt-balanced IPAs like Sierra Nevada’s Celebration when he began brewing Firetower Red IPA roughly nine years ago.
“Firetower is our ode to [Celebration] but I use New York State hops and malt and English yeast instead of American yeast to put our own twist on the style,” he says. He adds that what he loves about the red IPA style is its “one-two punch. It’s both malt and hops — it’s piney, dank, citrusy hops plus nice, warm, bready, caramel flavors; you’re getting both.” In addition to New York Craft Malt Erie Canal pale malt for Firetower’s base, Allen employs English Crystal 60 malt and a little bit of Blackprinz malt for color, plus the “classic ‘C’” hops: Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Columbus. This combination yields a beer that packs that characteristic red ale profile of graham, caramel and toast, but it brings in that satisfying old-school IPA bitterness and complexity.
In the wake of the IPA’s takeover in craft beer, styles like red ale slipped through the cracks. Allen theorizes this is because red ale falls in a middle ground of beer styles — people want something bold like an intense IPA or crushable and light like a lager, and dark beer enthusiasts tend to reach for truly dark beers like stouts. But it’s that exact “best of all worlds” quality that makes red ale something certain brewers want to work with again, and something beer drinkers should seek out.
One beer scene that never seemed to forget this is Colorado’s. The number of big red ale brands has shrunk a bit, but founder and head brewer at Holidaily Brewing Co. Karen Hertz says the style “has this history in Colorado. People love hoppy beers, of course, but the seasonality here draws people to maltier beers like reds, stouts, porters…they love these beers. You can’t have all IPAs all the time, after all; you need some diversity.” Recently, too, Hertz adds, she’s seeing people get back into more traditional styles and flavors.
At her Golden, Colorado brewery, Hertz has brewed Beulah Red Ale throughout most of Holidaily’s 10-year-and-counting run.
“Everything we brew is entirely gluten-free, and there really hadn’t been a gluten-free red ale before,” she says, explaining that the fact she could access a caramel red variety of millet and buckwheat made Beulah possible. “A big reason we wanted to make Beulah was to prove you could make an awesome gluten-free red ale — I don’t think anyone had really done it before.” The name, Hertz adds, is a nod to Beulah, Colorado, known for its supply of gorgeous stone called Colorado Rose Onyx, or “Beulah red marble,” that was entirely mined for the Colorado state capitol building. Like Highland with its Gaelic Ale and mascot, Holidaily uses red ale to embrace local history.
Don’t Leave Red on Read
Because of red ale’s more sustained popularity in Colorado, you’re more likely to find both traditional takes and riffs pouring at whatever taproom you happen into. God Hammer is a “Norwegian Red Ale” at Ramblebine Brewing in Grand Junction, Colorado, named for the Scandinavian kveik yeast brewer Eli Gerson uses to coax out bigger, more complex flavors like cherry and rye spice.
As beer drinkers do indeed show more interest in variety beyond IPAs and light lagers nowadays, brewers have more opportunity to play with old favorites like the red ale. Wherever you are in the country, you just might be able to find a classic Irish red or American red ale reinvented. In Austin, Live Oak Brewing Company’s holiday ale is a hoppy red called Krampus Punishment Ale. In Nashville, you can keep an eye out for various amber and red ales at any given time in one of TailGate Brewery’s nine locations. Source Brewing, with locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has an Irish red, and our Best Brewery of 2024 Spill Awards winner Wild East Brewing in Brooklyn does their King of the North red with a hop-forward spin. When everyone else is thinking green and raising pints of “the black stuff” (a.k.a. Guinness) on St. Patrick’s Day, take the opportunity to dive into the different variations of balanced, malty, hoppy, delicious red ale.
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