Deschutes Red Chair NWPA returns

(Bend, OR) – Deschutes Brewery got label approval for Red Chair NWPA this month. The beer had previously been released as part of the Bond Street Series but will now be available as a seasonal. Gary Fish, Deschutes Founder, confirmed it back in August on Beer Advocate:

“Right now, Red Chair is in, Buzzsaw is out. Red Chair will follow Cinder Cone’s final ride in the Spring.

We agree that Buzzsaw was a great beer and a completely different and unique take on the American Brown Ale category. We have always believed in going our own way. We believe in the art that goes with the science and that balance is not just standing on one foot. But our customers make the ultimate decisions with their purchases and, ultimately, Buzzsaw did not make the cut, for now.

Red Chair began as an experimental beer to test new hops and hopping techniques. It is clearly an IPA (55 ibu’s) but many hop heads don’t like to see it that way. It certainly is not a tongue scraping, teeth staining interpretation, but there are plenty of them and, beyond what we already have, we don’t think we will add anything to the category with one more.

We hear comments like, “it’s not an IPA, but I really like it” and sales were very encouraging. So it is getting promoted to part of our seasonal 6-pack line up for 2010. Ultimately, our consumers let us know what we should do. It is interesting Quail Springs is being mentioned because Quail Springs was a very popular beer here at the brewery and still is, but it was “relatively” mild compared to contemporary IPA’s and could not hold its place amid the high-ibu IPA’s.
We continue to look for Red Chair’s replacement in our Bond Street series of 22 oz. beers. We have been playing with, among others, a Black IPA as a possible/likely replacement. More to come on that later.”

I posted some info on Deschutes Black IPA back in August.

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