Grand Ridge Yarra Valley Gold

Brewed by Grand Ridge Brewing Co.
Style: English Pale Ale
Mirboo North. Vic., Australia

Serve in English pint, Shaker

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Not bad at all. I chilled my bottle perhaps a little too much, which took away some of the flavour but I’d have this again no probs.

330ml bottle into a pint glass. 1cm of fine, creamy white head, disappearing slowly. Color is definitely not gold, but more of a cloudy golden brown. Aroma is very sweet, with floral notes. Mild attack with a syrupy mouth feel. Hints of toffee and chocolate on the mid palate, along with a bitter almost orange peel and capsicum flavor. The finish is quite bitter and very long. Overall, the beer is ruined by the lingering bitter finish. Perhaps I had a bad batch.

Pours a cloudy amber with a tiny off white head. Aroma is toffee with some fruity notes. Taste is a strange and unpleasant mixture of toffee, caramel and fruits. I don’t usually really dislike a beer unless it’s a boring pale lager but this taste and aroma just didn’t do it for me.

Bottle from Mane Liquor. Light orange pour with a small white head. Nose is dominated by toffee malts and not much else. Toffee malts again dominate the taste with a touch of citric hoppage. Not bad and easy drinking

Pours an brilliant dark coppper hue, aroma is of coffee malts and aniseed? There are so nice fruit hints but the darker malts dominate this beer.

I have to agree with a previous reviewer that the name for this beer is a little misleading. Perhaps that is not the correct word but I was also expecting some kind of blonde/pale lager without much character and I was happy that I was wrong. A very nice easy drinking and well hopped pale ale with good malt flavour.

Out the bottle, cool but not cold. I picked this up in September last year and it has aged just nicely!
Toffee, rum and raisin icecream, wood and treacle, bitter burnt sugars, flowery hops, a hint of rose water, plums, prunes, the nose on this is so enticing, so alluring that the label on the bottle doesn’t do it any justice. It sits in the glass with a profound depth muddled by furious streams of minute bubbles. Its shimmering in the lights, an almost translucent deep tawny chestnut. A good inch an a half of rocky off white foam sits atop to hold in initial form until the glass empties producing a messy web of lace in its wake. Everything is in high gear in the mouth, from the rich malts to the weedy, bitter hops that reach into every nook and cranny with fervour. A generous hint of cocoa powder, pine resin and damp wood, some stinging nettles and flowery rose petals, toffee and treacle upfront and burnt, dark dried fruits adding to the assertively bitter swallow. Finish is a medly of aggressive hops and woody malts. It has just a little roasted nuts and sherry-like notes to aid in its complexity. This is bloody good stuff. Silky, soft mouthfeel and medium in body. It lingers oh so long in the mouth, a little residual sweetness of fruit sugars and a satisfactorily hopped out palate. All the hallmarks of a bigger beer wrapped up into a meagre 4.9% ale. Lovely!!! (33cL, No date stamp, Dan Murphy’s Mandurah)

355mL. Pours a clear to hazy amber with a medium, thick, rocky, yellow head with excellent retention and 360 sheety lace. Aroma is very rich platanos maduros, caramelized banana, old cantaloupe.Taste is old toffee, drying hops, grassy hops. Slightly medicinal like trying swallow a nasty pill and failing to get it down. Dry, nutty bitter palate moving to a bit suddy. No brewing flaws but very odd. Hard to love. Fairly bland.

28h October 2010
On tap at the White Horse, Parsons Green. Very hazy dark amber beer. Residual white head. Light dry palate that’s also softish. Soft creamy malt with a spot of tea. Tiny bit of orange hop. Minerals. Soft dry finish and a bitterish aftertaste. Drinkable.

Pours a curious amber colour, with sustained off white foam. Correct carbonation. Jersey caramel, vanilla shortbread cream biscuits on the nose. Quite enticing. The palate is rich, offering sweet candied flavours above new leather before collapsing in a monumental fashion into a bitter excessively hopped, coppery heap. The second sip isn’t quite as harsh. Infact, it improves as it warms up. Still, it’s an acquired taste. Not bad

Hazy light amber. Earthy aroma with a light citrus accent. Some nice fruity notes, light earthiness as well from oxidation. OK.