Have you ever had a regret in life that you wish you could change? Something you did (or didn’t do), perhaps, that you often reflect upon, wondering how things might have turned out differently in life if you did or did not do that thing? Perhaps in some alternate universe you made that different decision and your life played out differently.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. I was at Bullocks Liquors in Woodstock looking for a few beers to pick up, but just a few. One of the first beers that I spied in the cooler was a bottle of Southbound Brewing Fade to Red India Style Red Ale. This beer is made by Savannah, Georgia’s Southbound Brewing Company, another Georgia brewer that I was not aware existed. How does that happen?

Anyway, I passed the beer by and pondered on it, because I had already bought a lot of beer for the holidays and am overstocked at home. I picked up a few others and got in line at the register. And when my turn came….I went back to the cooler and snapped up the Fade to Red. Apparently, I do live in an alternate universe after all.

Fade to Red is a specialty brew from Southbound, and the label pays tribute to a local Savannah institution, Rock 106.1 FM. I’ve often listened to this station passing through Savannah on the way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My bottle was only released on September 20^th of 2014, and I bought it in early December. Southbound says about the beer on the label:

Fade to Red is a unique collaboration born from the love of music and craft beer. Our friends at Rock 106.1 FM helped us create this aggressively hopped India Red Ale just in time for Savannah Craft Beer Fest. This fading ruby red brew has a big hop presence balanced with a complex malt foundation. This tasty one-off will make yesterday seem as though it never existed.

Southbound Fade to Red has an alcohol content of 7.3% by volume and 65 IBUs. The beer is hopped with Columbus, Centennial, Simcoe, Chinook, Amarillo & Cascades per the label. An impressive hop bill indeed, and it shows. I paid a reasonable $6.99 for my 22 ounce bottle.

Southbound Fade to Red India Style Red Ale pours to a brilliant crimson color with a thick long lasting head of creamy foam, huge Brussels lacing and an absolutely irresistible nose of resiny fresh hop aroma. Taking a sip, the beer has a gentle stewed maltiness to it up front with a hint of caramel too followed by an over the top hoppiness, very resiny in aroma but becoming herbal towards the finish and ending on a massively bitter note. I am very impressed! I would like a weeny tad more caramel but this is fantastic and you can’t argue with the intense resiny hop aroma and flavor in this wonderful beer. It goes so well with the stewed red malts that I do hope this beer is offered again.

Meantime, I’ll be on the hunt for more beers from Southbound…….

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