Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale

Bottle. Pours golden amber with a white head , and some lacing. Slight aroma of citrus and carmel. Medium light body. Nicely balanced flavor sweet malt and hops. Light to medium bitter finish. Good, but a little tame on the hops.

Something about this beer makes it exceptionally flavorful. There are some nice candied caramel doughy malts in the middle that make the flavor stand out. The only knock on it is that the hop finish comes across kind of soapy. Could be because this bottle is almost to the expiration date and it was recieved as a gift, so previous storage is unknown. Regardless, this beer provides a good balance and I would like to try it again.

Cloudy golden with a thin white head. Pretty short retention. Smell had citrus, cascade hops, honey and caramel. Taste was nice with a good touch of caramel in the mix. Sweet on the finish. A bit simplistic, but high quality.

My experience with this beer includes an element of tragedy. I drove all day (nearly 600 miles) from St. Louis to Wheeling, WV. A West Virginia rating, which would have been my 48th state, was the prize at the end of a long, hard day. I arrived at River City Ale Works to discover that brewing operations had permanently shut down and they had converted to a bar now serving BMC, Leinenkugel’s, and Great Lakes on draught. I guess the bright side is that any beer from Great Lakes is infinitely likely to be better than any beer brewed in West Virgina. I went with the Burning River. The beer was served too cold (West Virginia style I suspect) but poured clear, bright copper with a tight, cottony white head. Nice aroma of mangos, apricots, and Mandarin oranges. Fairly dry, very piney flavor with a somewhat coarse, lacerative finish. A good, tasty hop fix that helped soothe my wounds. F*** West Virginia.

Full citrus, piney hops aroma, orange/amber, tight finger of white foam, gorgeous lace. Orange hops flavour start,firm malt backbone follows. Medium/full bodied, very well ballanced, lucious mouthfeel, why a burning river of hops and malt are cascading over my tongue. Wonderful!

Sweet hop aroma. Light golden amber color. The flavor started out sweet, some honey, then had a crisp hop finish.

Large burnt umber colored head containing a gradient of bubbles sizes. Excellent carbonation. Reduces to a sticky sheet of lacing. Nice hoppy aroma with an underlying roasted grain aroma. Some spruce and butterscotch in there also. Color is a dark orange. Kind of a burning river color. Ha Ha. Dry, bitter and hoppy palate. Plenty of resinous hops, grapefruit rinds and a chalky roastyness. Leaves the mouth puckering. Finish is bitter and dry yet slick going down the throat. I decent pale ale but something about the palate combination does not feel right.

Bottle. Pours a clear, slightly bubbly copper/orange color. Small off-white head. I’ve had some better aromas from APAs before. Some hops/cinnamon. Crisp, fresh hoppy flavor. Citrus/piney/bitter. Medium bodied. Reminded me of a mild ale IMO. Nice beer just didn’t blow me away.