Great Divide Hercules Double IPA

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Denver, Colorado USA

Appearance: Pours out a wonderfully clear orange-amber color with a pillowy, off-white head. Smell: What a winning aroma! A fresh assortment of juicy citrus fruits served with bread dough and orange blossom honey. Taste: Mild, smooth butterscotch sweetness provides a solid malt foundation that tapers off into a full salvo of orangy hop flavors that are a touch peppery. Renewed accents of toasted caramel lead into a dry, piney finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and quite creamy with a soft carbonation. Drinkability: Plenty of intense hop flavors and bitterness offset by a rich, malty sweetness. That settles it, Great Divide’s Hercules is a very well made Double IPA.

Bottle: Excellent aroma. Tons of grapefruit hops with the malt balance creating somewhat of an orange aroma. Pours a transparent reddish-orange with a nice white head with a little yellow tinge with great retention. Excellent lacing. Initial maltiness is combined with a excellent grapefruit hop finish. Very well balanced. Not as sweet as some IIPA, but balanced extremely well. No alcohol is noticeable. Excellent beer. Have been waiting to try this for some time now.

The appearance is a thick creamy looking white head atop a copper kettle colored body that has small particles in suspension. It laces better than most any other beer I’ve sampled. More sweet hops (oranges) than most other IIPA’s. The malts are much stronger in this as compared to Stone Ruination (the last beer I had). The aroma is VERY strong. You can smell it far away from the glass. The flavor is very hoppy and has much more malt than Stone Ruination. Orange peel, pine, toffee, brown sugar, and caramel malts. In my opinion, this one is too malty for an IIPA and is making me think that they were thinking of a barleywine when brewing. Not bad, but I’ve had better IIPAs. The palate is intensely bitter. This is a good, readily available beer. Thanks Jim!

On tap at Bocktown. Great brown sugar malt sweetness with the resinous punch of pine sap and grapefruit juice. Fresh grassy hops. Great aroma. Dark orange-amber clear with off-white creamy lacing head. Medium bodied with medium carbonation and a bit of salty carbonic tang. Starts with juicy grapefruity resinous hops, then brown sugar and caramel sweetness. The finish is more sweet than hoppy, and the fruity fresh hops gives wayvto a subdued dry bitterness that almost overcomes the sweetness. The after taste brings out more of the bitterness as the sweet brown sugar and caramel washes away. A bit of alcohol warming.

Good floral aroma of an IPA. Copper color body with off white head tha left lot of lacing on glass. Head settled to a thin layer over top of beer. Nice citrus flavor and at the end had a good grapefruit aftertase. Crisp on the palate, a great beer.

Smells great. A very nice cloudy orange. The grainy hops are very evident. But as hoppys as this is, it can actually be a more than one at a time beer. It’s strong and fantastic, a great beer from a great brewery.

Big floral hop nose - fresh. Doughy and even smokey aromas. Opaque ruddy-orange color, foamy off-white head. Big chewy malt body with some sweet caramel that gets overwhelmed by an insanely powerful hop bitter. Complex and mouth drying. Bitter for sure. Gritty texture at the end. Grapefruit-like too. Alcohol is detectable after the swallow, intensifying the flavor. Not for the weak at heart. A hop-head’s delight. Like a barlywine - recalls Bigfoot.

22 oz bottle via trade w/ TChrome. Poured a deep copper with an average sized head. Huge pine and citrus hop nose with caramel malt and alcohol hiding in the background. Massive pine and citrus hops in the flavor as promised by the nose. Good base of malt present as well. Medium bodied and a little syrupy on the mouthfeel. Overall I was not real impressed with this beer. Extremely hoppy (like punch-you-in-the-face hoppy), but it didn’t seem to have the depth and complexity in the hop profile that I want from IIPA’s. Just a boatload of hops.