Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Denver, Colorado USA

THOUGHTS: Nice, but nothing special. It really is a beer drinkers fruit beer. It’s not overly sweet or artificial. It’s real fruit in this one. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a clear, medium reddish amber with an average to large, slightly pink, off-white head that mostly diminished, but left fair to good lacing. The aroma was mostly raspberry. The initial flavor was lightly sweet, acidic and bitter; while the finish was moderately sweet, lightly acidic and bitter, and slightly sour with a short duration. There was mostly raspberry. The light body was fairly dry with soft carbonation and a light astringent finish.

Bottle. Smells like raspberries, tastes like raspberries. A pretty good fruit beer.

I like the observation below that you can tell the quality of a fruit beer by how much its color differs from traditional beer colors. In my experience that’s true, though to be sure, the New Glarus has a very robust red hue. In general, I don’t like fruit beers. Most are artificially colored and flavored. New Glarus, again, is the exception that I truly enjoyed. This was a pleasant surprise. I could drink this if someone served it in the hot sun. It is thin, a bit watery, malty, and plenty of raspberry flavor Some work on the body here would go a long way to improving ratings.

Reddish brown color. Head leaves some lacing. Really powerful raspberry aroma. Plenty of the malts. Slightly bitter. Raspberry taste up the wazoo.

Draft at the brewery. Pours a light pink with little head. Aroma of fresh fruit and some hops. Mostly raspberry and strawberry in the flavor, which lends a good fruity character without being artificial or cloying. Not really my cop o’ tea, but a nicely done fruit beer.

Pinkish amber with an medium quickly dissipating off-white head. Aroma of mild raspberry, wheat and yeast. Taste is more of the same. Mildly over-carbonated and syrupy, another fruit beer that misses the mark.

amber pour with a 1 finger light pink head. raspberries on the nose along with sweet malts. decent on the palate with nice, sweet malts upfront with a raspberry finish.

Pours a clear brownish darker pink with a medium/large fluffy off-pink foam and some larger carbonation bubbles. Smells of fresh raspberry seeds and sweet malt. Nice harmony, slightly tart raspberry juice and a base ale that actually stands up to the fruit (almost). Thin malty, slightly bitter, ale that could benefit from some more body, however, maybe that isn’t what they were going for. As it is now it is very drinkable and refreshing.