Great Divide Hercules Double IPA

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

big thanks to captaincougar for bringing this to saturday mondial gathering Very orange body, almost with red hints. Clear, foamy off-white film. Aroma is very piney, flowery. Mild alcohol hints appear in a vaporous form that gently complements the grass aspects. In mouth, the bitterness is intense from the beginning, while alcohol is always standing present, never too strong, never too weak. Very orangey hop profile, but also nicely flowery with fruity pineapple. Extremely dry, but yet has a great throat filling characteristic in the mouthfeel. Creamy texture with medium carbonation. Take it from someone who doesn’t like the style too much, this one is really well done and will relieve any hop desire without being over the top and serving no purpose.

Aroma is super hoppy, grassy citruis a bit of toffee. Taste is seriously hoppy with a great bitter attack, but so easy to drink a must for the future.

22oz bomber –pours a light tan thick head. Color is orangey. Aroma is grapefruit, taste follows, grapefruit. Not complex, just a good beer.

12oz bottle bottled 3rd week of April, 2006, sampled on 3/31/08: Not sure if this rating’s gonna mean much to anyone, but I aged a bottle of this for close to two years at 38F. Hop aroma has faded, but still has a touch of grapefruity presence and more sweet toasty caramel malt. Body has still maintained a good amount of carbonation and sweet maltiness and the hop flavor still has a lot of bitter resiny character and grapefruit. Not too far removed from the fresh version, apart from the aroma. I tried to stop this from aging as much as possible with the cold storage and I think it worked reasonably well.

2004 Gathering at Tiggmtl: Clear copper with a lacy white head. Aggressive hoppy aroma has a subtle caramel balance. Sweet citrusy and bitter body with some butterscotch caramel malt balance and plenty of grapefruity hops. Hides its alcohol well and has nice balance, but for some reason didn’t jump out at me as much as some double IPAs do. Still quite nice.

This beer rocks! Beautiful, crystal clear, copper ale with a small, creamy, off-white head. Nice retention and excellent, cumulus lacework. The aroma is sweet, fruity bliss. Notes of grapefruit, pineapple, fir, sugar cookies, apricot and toffee. The flavor is very heavy, malty and moderately bitter from start to finish. Well-balanced for an Imperial IPA. Full-bodied with a syrupy mouthfeel and medium carbonation. Lengthy, bitter, grassy finish. World class beer for sure!

cloudy copper-amber colour with a very little foam, strong hoppy nose showing apricots, nuts and wood, good malt backbone, oily with a very robust bitterness, the finish is incredibly long, very bitter and nutty with notes of vanilla - very powerful but balanced: just marvellous !

Bottle. Very hoppy! Lots of pine, lychee citrus. Lots of floral hops in the aroma dn the flavour. It is quite sweet, and leans way towards the hops, but this seems to be more balanced than other Double IPA’s i’ve had. Lots of flavour, beautiful stuff.

Hazy light orange, heavily carbonated to collapsing whipped-cream like head. Fully saturated nose with grapy and dusty hops as very fresh hops in the bale, faint touch of oranges and cookie malt. Outspoken hopbitter taste going over in short chocolate bitter and even metallic. Starts very aromatic but very quickly deteriorates into a very harsh, hops-essence bitterness, quinine-like or even, as lachesis said, chlorehexidine-like. Quite full bodied, bit fluffy MF. Long lasting bitternerness. Promises the world in the nose, and then tops over as a boat with an overloaded deck. Balance, gentlemen, balance. Thanks to lachesis for this bottle.