This beer was confusing. Before opening it I tried to pull up the URI printed on the bottle, www.redbranchcompany.com, and a webmail interface came up. After some googling I found a company claiming to make day fourteen's beer: Rabbit's Foot Meadery. Fair enough, must be a small brewery that hasn't worked out their web identity yet. Then I poured the beer and it wasn't really red, it was more of a golden orange color. Then I tasted it. Even with honey in the name, and even coming from a meadery, I couldn't imagine how this was a red ale. Red ales usually have a roasted malt flavor and this tasted like a watered down mead. I googled up the interwebs some more and found a few scant mentions on sites like Beer Advocate and none of the reviews sounded like what we were drinking. At this point I'm starting to wonder if this was mis-bottled.

I enjoyed this beer, it just wasn't at all what I was expecting. It had a sweet and alcoholic flavor like a mead or white wine and pretty much none of the roasted malt flavor I was expecting. The few meads I've tried were a bit much for me, tasting too much like wine. The Honey Red Ale was like a lighter, more beer-like version of the meads I've tried and I enjoyed this balance. If anyone has had this beer before please let us know what your experience was. I'm curious to know what the story is with this beer and if this was really supposed to be a red ale.