Great Divide Belgica

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Ale
Denver, Colorado USA

Style & glass: Belgian Ale, Trappist 12 fl oz x 7.2% ABV = 86.4 / 60 = 1.44 beers * 150 C = 216 calories (est.) Available at: Canal’s Lawrenceville, NJ for $8.99 Scent of leather, centennial hops, fruit, and decay, visuals are a brilliant golden body with a long lasting white head, taste is begian sweetness, bananas, and biscuits, with IPA citrus, bitterness, and presence. Palate is drying, active carbonation, and creamy. Overall, a very good beer. I hope it’s regularly available, because I’d like to have it all the time.

12 oz bottle. This is the first Belgian IPA I’ve ever experienced and it seems to mash the two styles together very well. It has the hoppiness and bitterness of a great IPA and that hallmark Belgian taste with definable banana esters. Smells and tastes exactly like what the label describes: a combination of IPA and Belgian-style ale. What a unique combo! I love it. I definitely taste a hint of wood here, too, like pencil shavings or something. Aromas of grapefruit, pine. A worthy experiment.

Poured from a 12oz. bottle into a stemmed glass. The color is a clear golden with about two fingers of white foamy head and some nice lacing. The smell is fruity with some tangerine and peppery hop bitterness. The taste is pooped in my mouth and I was pushed back for a sec, the sugar flavor, like candy, bring about pictures of sweet tarts. Fruity flavors just pop on the tongue as it goes down and really feels like a treat to the taste buds. The feel is mid to medium bodied. It starts out like it will feel heavier that it ends up being on the way down. This is a strong beer but does not take you off your feet. It is warming and keeps you entertained to the last sip.

Jesus H. Christ, I must have had a different beer than most here. I got a draft from Craft, with a deep gold, 1-finger off-white head and great lacing. The nose was floral, white peppery, with citric hops, rock sugary malt, and a big aroma that hits you square in the nose. The flavor is very hoppy, fruity, white peppery, floral, with hops, citrus, syrupy rock sugary malt, anda rich, crisp, complex palate. This one looks doesn’t look like a world beater ibn the glass, but boy does it give you tons of nose and flavor notes throughout. Super enjoyable, and one of the most underrated beers, mayhaps THE most underrated beer I have ever quaffed, and proof that American experiments aren’t always bad.

I know this rating is going to be an outlier here, but very year, a bunch of guys at U.S. breweries sit around and try to figure out how to make a quaffable summer brew, and they end up producing something between bathwater and hop-infused firewasser. Not the folks at Great Divide. One of the things I most respect about their beer is that they never get in over their heads, and they never compromise a beer style or its quality. Such is the case with Belgica. It’s a rich, fragrant ale with great quantities of yeast and lemon on the nose. Fuzzy nectarine-orange-banana flavors, a pitch-perfect hop presence, and a drying finish that leaves you wanting more. Furthermore, the beer has the weight and chewiness of a hefe, and it looks brilliant in the glass as it leaves a cobweb of lacing in its wake. If I could afford to drink it all summer long I would, though I can’t - which might be the sole shortcoming here.

draft at pizza plant- wow- not really digging the recent trend of belgiying everything- this was an exception- and exceptional- the hops shown through, as tropical fruit flavors and candy coated goodness dominated the flavor profile- and then the yeast did something unique- it complemented the beer. very nice.

12 ounce bottle in Grimbergen goblet (first time using this glass). Golden with quickly dissipating dense white head (could be the glass) and nice lace. Lemon pastry with yeasty spicy grassy aroma. Sweet lemony bready with medium fresh hop bitter dry finish. Nice soft mouthfeel and nice, lively carbonation. What can I say? I’m still a sucker for Belgian IPA. Delicious.

from crackedkettle.com - hazy pale golden colour with a little white foam; correct lacing; fruity hoppiness with notes of litchis and pineapple; clean and rounded palate, quite full-bodied; a fair bitterness and a long fruity hoppy finish - fresh, clean and to the point; a beautiful beer again from this brewery