Great Divide Samurai

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Golden Ale/Blond Ale
Denver, Colorado USA

sample from the bottle at The Great Decatur Beer Festival on 10/17/09... pours a cloudy yellow with a white head... not much on the nose at all... just a touch of rice and faint yeast. light body... some light bitterness, with a touch of sweet malt. feels like a lager... very easy drinking everyday beer to mow the lawn... not bad, just very boring and one dimensional.

First one at the newtown brewfest that ws new to me....I should have known better than to trust anything that says rice....Yeasty tang still was unbalanced and way too tart... this stuff is just plain bad.

Straw yellow color, almost the hue of a Belgian white. Puffy white head separates it from B/M/C stuff. Lace at the top. Cloudy and not that clear; thicker like a hefeweizen. The smell is light ale malts but with a slightly lagery sweetness. Smells light and crisp, like an above average lager. More like an all-malt lager. A little malt and some hop bitterness; German lagery. Pilsner aroma as it warms. The taste is sweetness of ale malts and the bitter snap of a lager. Actually it’s really nicely balanced. Tiny bit of spiciness at the end; a little bite. Feels thick and bubbly. Almost has the feel of an inert farmhouse ale. Somewhat fizzy. It tastes more like a pilsner to me than an ale. It’s different, and gets better as it warms up.

On tap at the brewery. This beer is really standard and unexciting and gets completely average marks all around. Pours slightly hazy yellowish-golden with a small white head. Aroma is rice and pale malt, slightly sweet and very unpronounced. Flavor is mild with rice, pale malt, light fruits, and a slightly alcoholic sake note. Crisp and fairly light on the palate. Not sure what they were going for here, but it is refreshing I guess.

draft at the brewpub - Pours cloudy white-yellow with a mild, malty aroma and what I guess is rice. The flavor is light and somewhat sweet with the rice apparent and a lingering mild hops bitterness. I wrote that it seems kind of wheaty, but from the description there isn’t any wheat malt in it, so that must just be the rice. It’s a decent brew but not really my thing.

(bottle - 12 oz) Slightly hazy golden pour with a creamy white head. Aroma is dry and slightly sweet with some notes of yeast. Flavor is mild but the rice is rather apparent. Leaves a slightly fruity but dry taste on the tongue. Interesting and very refreshing.

nice, orange golden color. a little on the bland side. the rice flavor is too muted. crisp taste though.

Échantillon, Mondial de la bière, 3 juin 2009; oeil : dorée, voilée, très légère effervescence, petit anneau de mousse beige; nez : grain, drèche, sucre résiduel, riz; bouche : grain, drèche, sucre résiduel, riz, finale en drèche avec sucre résiduel, plutôt carbonatée, très légèrement amère; en résumé : b’en ordinaire ENGLISH Sample, Mondial de la bière, savoured on June 3 2009; eye: golden, hazy, slight effervescence, tiny ring of beige head; nose: grain, spent grains, residual sugar, rice; mouth: grain, spent grains, residual sugar, rice, finale in spent grains with residual sugar, rather carbonated, slightly bitter; overall: quite ordinary