Sometimes my job can be very demanding and this week was a doozy.  I was really looking forward to beer #2 in my 40 For Forty quest and wanted to pick something that was symbolic of my week.  After perusing the shelves of my local beer haunt, my decision was made pretty easy by the fine folks at Tool Shed Brewing.  Red Rage Strong Ale – it summed up my week to a T.  There are two very cool things about Tool Shed Brewing.  First off, they brew right in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta.  Second, they actually started brewing in a tool shed – true story, you can google it.

To keep things consistent I stuck to my “4 Rules of Beer Review”…

1 – Make sure glassware is clean.  Why dirty a perfectly clean glass when Tool Shed provides you with a very cool can to drink from?

2 – Cleanse the palate.  This week left a bad taste in my mouth, the only thing that would cleanse this pallet would be a nice tasty beer, or six.

3 – Don’t review while intoxicated.  I’ll get you next time rule 3, next time….

4 – Look for appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel (could they make that sound any more disgusting), and overall.

Appearance – dark and deep amber in color – much like the color I saw this week when I almost lost my mind.

Smell – I always struggle with how to articulate smell so I asked my 4 year old to help me out.  Here is how it went…

ME – What do you smell in Dad’s beer?

HIM – Dad it smells like beer, can we go ride bikes?

That’s my boy, a wealth of information.  After sitting with my nose jammed into the beer the best I could say was that it smelt like malty coffee

Taste – at 5.6%, Red Rage packs a mid sized punch…much like one I could’ve given out to a few people this week.  It had a nice malted flavour with just a touch of hops. Much like my week, Red Rage was a bit bitter, but that bitterness was cut with  coffee tones.

Mouthfeel – it felt like a glorious mouthful of beer!

Final verdict on Red Rage – I give it a “I-could-drink-these-till-I-went-into-a-Ginger-induced-coma” out of 10.

Categories: Beer