Central City Red Racer India Pale Ale

Review #1
Brewer: Central City Brewing
Beer: Red Racer India Pale Ale
ABV: 6.5%
Location: Surrey, BC, Canada
Style: India Pale Ale




Well this is a beer that I had the pleasure of trying out probably close to a year ago. I had never heard anything about this brewery before I saw it on the shelves, but 3 things made me buy it. A) it's Canadian, B) It was canned (which was really just more intriguing than anything), C) The can art was cool. Probably the worst, not to mention most superficial, reasons for buying a beer, but meh. It turned out that despite those misguided reasons, my hunch payed off, because what this beer is easily my favorite IPA to come out of Canada, and one of my favorite that I've tried thus far. It pours from a can with a super vibrant orange/amber color and a nice tight off-white colored head. Carbonation makes its way up the glass, and this beer is absolutely clear. The smell hits me right away without even needing to bring the glass to my nose. Tons of Pine, citrus peels - Grapefruit, lemon, orange - and a dank resinous quality. When you dig deeper you can smell some malt that gives it a slight caramel aroma. Only thing left to do is taste it. Well, this thing is just great. Again right up front is that hoppy, piny flavour. Grapefruit bitterness then takes center stage, and almost makes your mouth pucker. You get some of that caramel malt flavour coming in that gives it a tropical kind of fruit, like mango sort of flavour, but its pretty subtle. The hop Bitterness lasts all the way through to the finish on this too, so if you're not a fan of Hops you will truly hate this beer, because it is a hop bomb. No alcohol flavour at all, but that's not really expected of something that's only 6.5%. The mouth feel is great too. medium bodied, great carbonation, and it feels pretty slick. I'm quite certain that this is a fairly fresh batch, as I tend to make a stop to my local beer store every week, and I bought this on the day they got them in - that was about 2 weeks ago though. But the hops are huge, and upfront, so there's no sign of fading due to age. I haven't had any other beers from these guys yet, but I'm looking to remedy that really soon. I guess if you're looking for a decent comparison, I would have to say its pretty damn close to a Dogfish Head 60 Minute. However, I haven't had that beer for pretty close to a year now, and thanks to them pulling out of Canada, probably won't for some time now, but from what I remember that beer shares a lot in common with the Red Racer IPA. What else can I say? If you are in to IPA's you would be ridiculous not to give this beer a shot.


Rating: I'd ride all kinds of bicycles for this beer.