Great Divide HotShot ESB

Formerly brewed at Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Denver, Colorado USA

Pours med. amber w/lite head. Aroma is slightly oxidized w/some cookie malts and lite hops. Med. Lite body. Oxidized flavors w/ some lite hops and lite diacetyl. Drying bitterness. BLAND.

Bottle. Poured an almost clear lighter golden with a nicely-retained white head. Very nice lacing as this went down. Aroma was of herbal, grassy, and citrus hops, with a little underlying sweetness. Bitter as advertised on the palate, with flavors of lemon zest, light caramel, grass, and herbs in there. Bitter herbal finish. There wasn’t much exciting about this one, but it was true to style, and went down very smoothly.

A solid ESB. I could’ve used more bitter, but that’s why I usually drink IPAs I guess. Also, in terms of the palate, this beer, versus other similarly bitter IPAs was a little light in the body department. One of four styles in the Great Divide variety 12 pack.

There was no grapefruit. For that I am thankful. This was a middling ESB with a nice pour but muddled maltiness. An herbal, grassy finish. Woodiness? Something is missing from this.

Good long bitter hoppy finish, almost grassy taste, bitter alcohol aroma. Full head, too.

Bottle: Flowery and grassy hop aroma. Pours a transparent orange with a touch of haze and a big creamy white head with good retention. Finishes with with a nice flowery hop finish. Rather suprised.

[bottle - 12 oz] Slightly hazy orange color with a large amount of head. Very overly carbonated. Sharp and peppery aroma of hops with a slight sweet hint underneath it all. Very hoppy taste to it, with a very slightly sweet and fruity taste at the end. Mainly some sweet malts, but still has a peppery aftertaste.

(12 oz bottle: Obtained in trade with bkelley68, thanks Brian!) Whoa, who’d a thunk it? Yet another Great Divide 12-ouncer with turbo-charged carbonation. I’m really getting tired of this. Another glass of foam that takes several minutes to die down. When it finally does, I’m left with a sweet and very fruity beer that hints strongly at soapiness. Not a whole lot of malt is in evidence here, unfortunately, but at least there is a modicum of hoppy bitterness in the finish. The nose is all fruit and soap. Medium bodied, and each sip of beer explodes in my mouth. Amber colored body is only slightly hazy, so the large carbonation bubbles rising through the beer are clearly visible. The extremely foamy head looks like detergent bubbles in my sink when I’m washing dishes, and stays at a quarter-inch in height. I guess I gotta try to get another bottle of this Great Divide beer too. Sigh...