Sure, I’ll admit it. Sometimes all it takes for me to try a beer is a great name.  Not that it is ever a challenge to get me to try something new.  One of my favorite beer names is Montana Brewing Company’s Custer’s Last Stout. In addition to being a great name, it is a great beer. So, when I saw another of Ridgeway Brewing Company’s holiday beers in the cooler I knew I had to give it a try based on the name alone:  Insanely Bad Elf.

Insanely Bad Elf is Ridgeway’s Imperial Red Ale and pours a brilliant copper color with a thin white head from an 11.2 oz bottle. There is a faintly malty sweet aroma.  As for flavor, this is a full bodied, malty beer with lots of candied fruit flavor and alcohol heat, which is particularly present in the aftertaste.  There are enough hops to avoid it being sticky sweet, but malt is definitely the focus and you’ll want to sip it. At 11.2% abv, this is a brew to be careful with or you might end up taking a picture like this.