4 Hands Snake Oil Red IPA

In the past, I’ve referred to St. Louis’ 4 Hands Brewing Co. as a “quintessential sort of American brewery,” in the sense that they don’t really put all their eggs in a single stylistic basket. Everything is fair game there—standard American pale ales? Sure. High gravity Belgian ales? Yep. Fruit-infused sours? Naturally. Most of these are solid, fundamentally sound brews.
Their latest, Snake Oil, is likewise solid, although it may not quite set the world ablaze. Described as a “red IPA,” it inhabits a hazily defined sub-style that hasn’t quite made an appeal for separate nomenclature just yet. There is no limit, after all, to the hue a standard “American IPA” can possess. Black IPA was able to build itself into a separate, recognizable style through being notably opposed to the norm, but red IPA? People have been making copper and amber-colored India pale ales for as long as the style has existed—it makes the case for a separate style a little bit more difficult to argue.