Great Divide Hercules Double IPA

Bottle at the GBBF 2009. Wow, what a beer. Excellent subtle aroma of pine and flowers and is that candle wax I smell? A creamy palate with well-balanced flavours of sweet, bitter and grass. Gorgeous.

Bottled 355ml. Ordered from crackedkettle.com. It pours a bautiful, slightly hazy deep copper beer with a small bubbly light beige head. Quinces, mango, lychee, walnuts, raisins, mint, liquorice allsorts and a lot of blueberries showing up in the aroma. Surprisingly sweet taste. Nice balance between malt and hops. Decent bitterness. Hints of blueberries, liquorice allsorts, caramel, figs, walnuts, mango, pine needles and strawberries in the flavor. Peppery components emerging on the swallow. Complex and full bodied. Syrupy. Subtle carbonation. Some lacework. Long peppery finish which is reminiscent of licorice, mint and hop resin. Not a great example of a Double IPA.

Pours dark marmalade, with plenty of sediment swirling around the bottom of the glass. Little head, but some lacing, and a fairly pungent aroma of fragrant malt and sweet hops. Lively on the tongue, with toffee, caramel and citrus to the fore, and characteristic hoppy tail. Medium-bodied, and a very decent IPA with it.

12 oz. bottle.Nice IIPA. Pours a dark copper with virtually no head, and a lot of yeast. Aroma is nicely hoppy, mostly on pine, with a good malt base. The flavor is Very nicely balanced, a good hoppiness with a solid malt balance to cut down the bitterness. Mouthfeel is pretty thick and chewy.

Pours a copper color with hardly any white head no lacing hoppy caramel floral aroma way different than the titan ipa ... taste of toffee caramel malt and it finishes with a hoppy bite and citrus flavor not as piney as the titan either its a winner

First off, Great Divide - start distributing to California! Anyway, I had a bottle of this at the Brickskeller in DC, which is pretty much twice as far from Denver as I live, but they get GD beers and we don’t. This is a very good DIPA. Orangish-copper color with a nice white head and good lacing. Aroma is piney and citrusy hops and sweet malt. Flavor is sweet, toffeeish caramel malt balanced by lots of fresh-tasting pine and citrus and hop bitterness lingering on the finish. Hop oils on the palate, medium-full for the style. Re-rate: had this again on tap at Great Divide tasting room. This falls a tiny bit flat on flavor, really not standing up to some of the better IPAs out there. Have to knock it down from a 8 to 7 on flavor and 16 to 15 overall. Still really good though.

Again, looking for a competitor to Founders IPA. This stuff is good but not as good as Founders. Would drink again but not over Centinial IPA!

Location: Had just a bit of this from Brickskeller, 7/31/09

Overall Impression: I’m pretty sure I’ve had this brew before, but anyway, a friend ordered this one and I tried a bit. Quite tasty and enjoyable, definitely a beer I should drink again.