Great Lakes Brewing Orange Peel Ale

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

Serve in Flute

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Poured out a thin looking beer, bright orange and super clear, decent foamy white head that foams up nicely but fades away to a bit more than just rim. The aroma is very very nice , mainly cause I like orange. But here’s the thing: from a distance or a quick sample its very very appealing with it’s vitamin C supplement smell ( what the hell was that stuff called? It was like big pills that were orange, smelled of fake orange and dissolved in water.... is that still sold? anyone?.. ack... gotta ask my parents tomorrow - they are old - they will know:D) but once you really take a good huff that fake almost sour orange aroma buts mixed in with a bunch of faceless malts and hops that don’t compliment each other. This is not saying that the aroma is bad, just off. The taste, for a second is very fresh with the orange stuff but then a drying dullness with bunch of mild strength hops take over. Further tasting widens the orange realm but I don’t like how the bitterness finishes it off. The malts and hops, however, do balance each other out nicely. Damn. I really like the orange here but the hop blend does not match as much as I would like. With that said, I still am enjoying this beer due to the orange edges. The aftertaste has the flavour of licking blood off of your hand and that bothers me. It’s only on the very back end of the finish though - the rest is pretty good - ample soft carbonation, tang form the oranges hits mid taste on every sip, light bodied... I’m just conflicted on the hops here, even in their mild state. I think I really like this beer and if I wasn’t analyzing I’d like it more. Still, it is very light. I’ll just flip a coin... and the winner is... ack! It landed on edge.....

Bottle picked up at the brewery by a friend. Pours a clear copper colour with a white bubbly head. Leaves some foamy lacing on the walls of my glass. Smell is a bit skunky with a touch of orange peel. Not there best brew.

Mild fresh aroma slightly spicy. Looks pretty basic thin dissipating head. Clean taste with almost no finish. A bit of a musty sort of aftertaste. So so.

24th July 2009
hazy amber beer. Crisp and a little dry. Light malt with soft orange riding underneath. The orange is a little marmalade and surprisingly subtle. Can’t taste the honey of much of any hops. Smooth finish with the orange getting a little sweeter. Refreshing.

From the bottle, pours a nice pale orange with a soft white head. As for aroma, I do get a wee bit of orange zest, but quite frankly not a lot. Beyond that not much else going on. On the palate very mild, carbonated and clean. Somewhat disappointed. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

This rating is from one of their 2012 spring batch. Pours a nice light red to copper. Generous head but doesn’t last. No lacing to speak of. Orange flavour is present in the foam, but nowhere else. If they didn’t tell me that there was orange peel in this beer then I would have thought the fruitiness came from the yeast. As a blonde(ish) ale this beer is pretty good. But the orange peel flavour is missing. Come on, GLB. If you’re going to make a beer called Orange Peel Ale, then make the orange peel front and centre. As an ale it’s pretty good. As an orange peel ale, it’s a bug disappointment.

650mL bottle from LCBO. Pours hazy yellow. Not much aroma to speak of, but a tiny bit of hops and orange in there. Taste is quite nice - malt and orange peel with a clean mildly bitter finish. Full bodied and full flavoured. A nice not-too-fruity fruit beer.

Rated based on price: this beer lacks basic adjuct flavorings that merit a price of more than $3 a pint ($6 a pint is obnoxious). Flavor: No hops, No orange, no flavor. The label is essentialy a lie. There isn’t a ’generous amount of hops...and heaps if fresh oranges’.... For an ale if this style it seems this is morenof a cash grab than anything else. On its own, absent the price and promises of orange flavor, it stands in its own as a nice ale. I suggest youvbuy Crazy Canuck for bang for your buck.

Pour a light amber beige head. Aroma orange rind/orange oil, caramel, cereal grain. Taste caramel, cereal grain, little hops and a decent orange flavor. MF medium body mild carb. An avg beer with orange flavoring.

Originally rated June 2007. Purchased a bottle of this 20th anniversary (brewery) limited edition beer while I was in Toronto. Pours a clean amber colour with an off-white fairly creamy head, that is not the biggest, but does retain its shape for a while. The carbonation is above average and lacing sticks all around the glass. The nose though is not very strong, with a bit of hop. This would be the weakest part of this brew. The texture is smooth and creamy. Its flavours are quite nice and not too punchy. Just a nice blend of grainy malts and hops. The bitterness is subtle all the way through, and slightly goes stronger in the aftertaste. The orange is not there to make this a fruity beer, but to built a bridge between the malts and hops. A very intresting limited product, worth seaking before it is gone.

Served in a Hill Farmstead wine glass. Pours a somewhat-light orange color. Starts with a single-finger head that quickly falls down into a bit of moldy-looking white color on the top of the brew with a faint touch of lacing. Nose is a very faint, slightly-tart odor consisting mostly of a bit of orange. Really faint. I’ve having a bit of trouble picking out anything else. The taste is slightly oxidized with a very mild amount of orange peel. Some very light bready malt and slight cardboard character. Body is quite light with a low amount of carbonation. There is a touch of sweetness there. The finish is like water, as there’s really not all that much there and the carbonation is quite low. Slightly-harsh in the end. Not too many off characteristics, but it doesn’t do all that much. Serving type: bottle Reviewed on: 11-20-2010