Hey everyone! Time for another review here at Tastes Like Beer.
Tonight I'm drinking a beer by AleSmith Brewing Company which is located down in San Diego, CA. Tonight, we're drinking My Bloody Valentine!
This is the cousin beer to Evil Dead Red Ale (which is fantastic btw). Evil Dead Red is their Halloween seasonal and is obviously good on name alone since it's named after one of the best movies ever to exist in the world, Evil Dead.
But enough about that. My Bloody Valentine comes in at 6.66% ABV and is listed as an American Amber/Red Ale. It's been quite some time since I've had an Amber ale so I'm hoping this is pretty decent.
The beer poured out a really nice ruby red with a fluffy head that bordered on 1 1/2 fingers. Head sticks around for a bit but doesn't over stay it's welcome. Leaves a really nice lacing on the glass. This beer looks incredible. Really beautiful color. If you've had AleSmith beers before, you know their beers never fail to impress on appearance.
The nose on this beer is pretty decent. The bottle says there is an intense bouquet of hop aroma and honestly, it smells pretty hoppy. No where near as hoppy as an IPA but real nice floral hops. I'm getting quite a bit of sweet malt coming through. Maybe like a sweet bread, a hawaiian bread maybe? It's really sweet smelling. The bottle mentions notes of chocolate but I'm not picking up the chocolate. Maybe it's in the taste? The hop aroma is pretty much dominated by the sweetness to be honest.
It's time to see what this Bloody Valentine tastes like. Initially, I'm hit with a nice hop bitterness. Definitely the characteristic of a red ale. That doesn't last though. This bitterness is immediately cut by sweet malts. Those are accompanied by some fruits actually. Maybe a plum character coming through. There's a little bit of a caramel sweetness right behind that as well. This is a really sweet beer. I get a little bit of creaminess on the second go around. Maybe it's those chocolate notes? Could be a milky chocolate sort of character. The taste isn't there, but the mouth feel is there. The back of the throat this beer finishes fairly dry. A little bit of bitterness lingering around. The sweetness sort of fades quickly after the initial blast.
Overall, this beer isn't terrible, but it's sort of middle of the road for me. It's really sweet. It's not cloying thankfully, but this is one of the sweeter beers I've had in a while. It has the characteristics of an Amber Ale as well as a Red Ale. I sort of wish it was one or the other. If Evil Dead Red is a Red I would have hoped this would be the Amber.
I think it's worth trying though. I wouldn't avoid this beer by any means. I like it, but it's just not really my style. A little too sweet and kind of a mix of two styles but not more like one style than the other. If you can get this it's worth a shot. It could be I just need to try this again and I might like it but I haven't had anything this hoppy today so I'm not sure. I give this beer a B-. Not terrible, but sort of... just alright for me.
The wife gave it a try. Said it simply tastes like beer... but nothing special.
Rating: B-
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