Great Lakes Brewing Orange Peel Ale

Brewed by Great Lakes Brewing (Ontario)
Style: Fruit Beer
Etobicoke, Canada

Serve in Flute

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650ml Bottle. a pleasant enough ale with some decent body to it, a bit of assertiveness in the blended hops and not overly sweet from the pale malts (I figure you don’t want the orange effect to come across too candy-ish.) It might benefit from being a touch drier, but the degree of orange flavoring was about as appropriate as one could expect.

Poured a orange colour with a huge head. Pretty boring. It tastes like a lot of other English ales and Orange taste is barely noticeable. I wont be buying this again.

650 mL bottle @ LCBO. Strange seaonal beer. Very nice, sweet and citrus aroma. Poured a golden orange with a respectable head. Not as good tasting as it smells, as it is somewhat bland. Very little orange taste, very hoppy. Not what I expected at all. Everything about this beer: the packaging, the smell, the appearance was good excpet for the taste, left something to the imagination. Overall, interesting beer but not something I’d purchase again.

650 mL bottle. Deep orange (!) brown with a bit of head. Aroma of malt and orange juice - smells sweeter than I expected. Flavour begins and ends with hops, with plenty of malt in the middle. Orange is more subtle until the end. (And beyond.) Not as sweet as it smells; it is nicely balanced. A bit light-bodied, but not bad.

Bottle from the LCBO. Pours a very nice golden-orange with a good sized off-white head. Aroma is fairly malty, with some fruit and faint floral notes, and a slight booziness as it warms up. Medium body with fairly light carbonation. Flavour is nice and well-balanced, with stong malt to start, and the orange adding a pleasant mild citrus note that goes well with the soft hops in the finish. A but more subdued than what I usually like in an ale, but it’s very well made, and quite sessionable.

UPDATED: MAY 15, 2010

2010-05-13. Hazy orange body with a modest white head and lace. Pleasant aroma, sweet orange, tangerine, light hops. Flavour is similar with sweet orange citrus up front, bitter tangerine/grapefruit character, modest bitterness throughout. Average to light palate. Decent. 7/3+/7/3/14 - 3.4 Cask "Hop A Peel" dry hopped with Magnum hops and additional orange peel, at the brewery

2010-05-13. No notes, more hops and significantly more orange flavour, more punchy all around, significantly more flavour after a recipe change with more orange peel added throughout the process. +1 Flavour, +1 overall. On tap at the brewery.

2007-04-XX. Pours orange-amber body with a moderate head. Aroma is on the sweet side with a light malty character accented by sweet orangey citrus. Flavour is similar, with moderate sweet malt showing mild sweet orange around the edges. Average to medium palate is appropriate for the beer. Pleasant enough, and fairly quaffable but its a bit too mild and unassertive for my tastes. Enjoyable but does not set itself apart from others enough to make it a regular tipple for me. 6/3/5/3/13 - 3.0Draft at C’est What.

650ml bomber - pours light amber gold, with a frothy’ish off-white head. Aroma is mainly of sweet malt, but there is the slightly amount of citrus in the background, which seems like it is coming from the orange peel, rather than hops. Flavour is similar, though the orange character comes more to the fore, particularly in the finish and somewhat in the aftertaste. Still, malts dominate here, with almost no hop presence that I could detect, which is contrary to the brewers own description of this beer. I’m glad it’s not overly sweet like a fruit beer, but I wouldn’t say this is all that markedly different from many other malty beers on the market. Yes, different...but not by any great deal. In the mouth it is smooth and drinkable. Overall, it is decent.

UPDATED: MAY 27, 2007 Rerate: I’ve been told that some prefer the bottled version over the draught version so I’m giving it another shot to see if I like it more. Pours a clear orange-amber with an average size frothy off-white head. Aroma’s sweet with caramel malt, honey, grain, some fruit (maybe oranges but if so, it’s very subtle) Flavour: I’m actually tasting oranges in there this time around along with caramel malt, some grain, light hops and a short bitter finish. Medium bodied. I much preferred this bottled version over the pint I had on tap previously, it’s still nothing great but it’s easy to drink, pretty tasty and I’d gladly have it again.
Original rating: 5.3.6.3.11: 2.8 Draught at the Victory Cafe. Meh, for some reason I don’t have high hopes for this. We’ll see. Pours a bubbly orange-amber with a small diminishing white head -- looks nice. Aroma’s not at all what I was hoping for, it smells like a mediocre sweet Lager. Grainy along with sweet malt and maybe a hint of citrus and little to no hops. Disappointing. Flavour follows the aroma but it’s a little better, it’s not as grainy. Sorry, this don’t much for me at all, pretty dull stuff.

nice easy drinking beer. although really not that much citrus, was hoping for more, amber colour with small but lasting head. kinda sweet taste. Not incredible but hey i like that they are trying.

Tap at C’est. Orange/amber with little head. I’m inclined to think that, given the thin profile of the brew itself, the orange oil has a tyrannical effect over what would be a normally unclean-tasting, not hugely interesting dark ale. Smells great, but in the aggregate, didn’t quite work for me. I appreciate the effort, though.