Red Hook ESB

 ESB stands for Extra Special Bitter.  There's nothing extra special about Red Hook's ESB.   Red Hook brewery is the overly opinionated hot chick who is 1/8th as smart as she thinks she is.  You really want to like her, but she keeps saying embarassingly stupid shit and you're tired of defending her to your friends.  In defiance of your biological imperative, you decide it isn't worth it and move on.

In the 12 years that I've been legally drinking Red Hook's offerings, they have had about four amazing beers that enjoyed critical success and were subsequently torpedoed by the powers that be.  This is like the aforementioned hot chick shaving her head for reasons that elude sense and rational thought. The end result is disappointment, a broken heart and a bitter taste in the mouth, not entirely unlike my experience with Red Hook ESB tonight.

In the glass, ESB looks and smells fantastic.  In the mouth,  coppery and bitter.  I don't know what the hop bill is, but the flavor hops are right on while they went way over the top with bittering. The style known as "bitter" is really a bit of a misnomer and I'm not exactly sure how it came about. Bitters, according to style, tend more toward the sweet side than the bitter.  This beer has everything it needs to be enjoyable, Red Hook just needs to back off on the hops.