“Italian Red Ale”. The fancy 300 ml bottle as noted here. Beeradvocate has this listed as a Herbed/Spice beer but for all intents and purposes this drinks like a light, American Red – hence my categorization.

Pour is a very light copper color with a touch of chill haze. Head is large, but also very wispy and the lace is minimal. Nose offers little, and the tastes follow with a rather generic, lightweight dryish, lightly hoppy beer with some definite American red character. As it warms, things improve as expected.

Mouthfeel is quite nice with a medium body but one that has some fine-bubbled carbonation. That lends a certain zip to the beer that is a little lacking in terms of the taste. Mouthfeel in the end is the strongest attribute here. Non-offensive, drinks easily enough, but lacks much presence or depth and is relatively poor value (I paid almost $4 for the 10.4 oz). There is a touch of caramel malt here, a little grainy sweetness but it’s all pretty muted. In terms of marketing it leans quite heavily on the idea that “it’s Italian” without that ever either meaning anything in isolation, or delivering much in practice.

In the end I certainly didn’t dislike it, was glad to have had the chance to try it, and am not all that disappointed – I expected little. One and done again here though.