Redhook Brewery‘s beloved ESB is celebrating 1987—its birth year—when the still-miniscule, then-Ballard, Seattle brewery was experimenting out of their transmission shop along the sound. British-style beers were the focus at the time but then brewers Paul Shipman and Gordon Bowker couldn’t have known their extra-special bitter would be the ale to put Redhook on the map for craft beer eternity. In honor of 1987’s total bitchin’ experimental beer gone right, Redhook has released their legendary ESB in rad retro cans, available only in Washington. They also threw a throwback party in April that included breakdancers, graffiti art and a vintage Redhook vending machine, coupled with a few special brewery-only forms of ESB (dry-hopped was one to note) but it all came back to the founding reason—ESB. Now brewed in Woodinville, Washington, this beer is meant to be a quaffer, not overly complicated but certainly sessionable with hints of honey and malts of toffee on the nose. Medium-bodied with a moderate bitterness, the malts smooth out to a creamy palate and, like, completely righteous crisp finish.
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