Ruby Red Ale from Harpers Brewing Co Beer Review

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Ruby Red Ale from Harper's Brewing Co beer review. I'm pretty sure this is the last of my beers from ALDI and the only dark one they do in the entire selection, which is disappointing. The beer is brewed exclusively for ALDI and as with most of the selection despite a lot of Googling there's very little else I can tell you about the brewery. If I'm honest the whole ALDI beer selection has been a bit of a bland bag so far but as a dark beer drinker I really have higher hopes for this one than any of their much more pale offerings. Well fingers crossed.

Ruby Red Ale from Harper's comes in a very purple 500ml bottle and proclaims itself to be 'a deeply mahogany beer with rich toffee apple and roasted chocolate flavours.' So it sounds nice enough, and at 5% alcohol it's a reasonably good offering for a budget brand. The beer pours a very dark red, almost to the point of been black, while the nice stable head almost makes it look like a good stout from a distance. Really it's a very good looking beer so things are really starting to look very positive.

The aroma's quite mild, but fruity. I'd say the main aroma is probably grape, but it's just not potent enough to really push through and excite the senses. At this point I'm not really sure where the toffee apple or chocolate flavours are hiding, but maybe they are all in the taste. The Ruby Red Ale texture very much matches the look in that it's quite rich and full bodied, but not to the level of a proper dark beer. Meanwhile the flavours match the smell more than the description with mild fruit flavours, a bit of grape, and some decent roasted malts. There might be some toffee or caramel in there but it's certainly not very pronounced and I couldn't taste any chocolate at all.

All in all Ruby Red Ale from Harper's Brewing Co is a decent drink, especially for the budget price. I don't think anyone will find it a taste sensation, but it's not a beer you can find a great deal of fault with either. I find myself comparing it to LIDL's Ruby Rooster offering and there's certainly some similarities in that they are both pleasant but you probably wouldn't go a long way out your way for either. I'm going to give Ruby Red Ale from Harper's Brewing co from ALDI a very respectable 7 out of 10. Ultimately it's a good budget drink, it's not spectacular, but it's decent and that's all you can ask for at just over a pound a bottle.