Divide by three

I experienced the mild disappointment of "aww, I've already had it" when I set about writing a review of this can of Great Divide Denver Pale Ale. It showed up previously in this post back in 2011. But! Further research indicates that they changed the recipe in 2016 so I think it's fair game to call it a new beer.

The original tasted of honey, biscuits and fresh fruit, according to me. The new one doesn't. There's a lot of candy in both the aroma and taste: chew sweets, and Refreshers in particular. Throw in some frangipane spongecake as well. Despite this, the texture is light and crisp, feeling less than its 5% ABV and with a pleasingly sharp bite of classic American-hop grapefruit. It's contrast more than balance, but it still works. The can was over six months old by the time I opened it, and it retained an impressive amount of freshness. This is a fun beer, packed with flavour yet accessible and sessionable. Can't say fairer than.

The next one is a bit of a comedy of errors. Hop Disciples is an IPA of 6.2% ABV, part of a "rotating hop project" "featuring a different hop variety every year". Nowhere on the can does it say which hop is actually featuring. *shrug*. The point may be moot, however. I knew this had been in my fridge a while, but not indecently long. However, I may have purchased an antique when I bought it in Stephen Street News as it had clocked up fourteen months in the can by the time I opened it. Ooops. Fermentation may have been chuntering on during that as I got a lot of foam when I poured it. The body is a dark and hazy orange. There's a vague aroma of nondescript diluted citrus drink. The flavour is still good, though. A big malt base stands it in good stead: orange jelly and apricot jam come to mind. Any airier hop high-notes have departed but there's a fun clove or nutmeg spicing. I feared a harsh bitterness but that's not present and it remains balanced. This is no longer an American hop explosion, if ever it was, but it's not too far from a pale English or Belgian strong ale, and as such still very decent drinking.

Sticking with IPA but bringing the ABV up to 8% we have Hopnaut, described in a suspiciously on-trend way as a "double juicy IPA". Let's see about that. It's funny how "juicy" has led to an expectation of haze, even though it doesn't imply that and there's barely any here. The aroma is passably juicy, however, if shading a little to sticky boiled sweets. It definitely doesn't taste like a modern hazeboi: there's real old-fashioned crystal malt sweetness, with a generous squeeze of contrasting lime citrus and a balancing tannic dryness. This is how I remember American double IPAs tasting, back when I first started tasting them. And because my tastes have changed, if not necessarily in the direction of beer fashion, I really quite like it. There's a sizeable booze quotient too, as well as a thick texture, which together make this one to sip and savour. It's not easy going and I'm sure it isn't meant to be. I'm all on board for sneaking ballsy C-hop bitterness into the diet of juice-bomb aficionados, and while I enjoyed that practical joke, I enjoyed drinking this beer even more. Big hops as your grandpappy drank them, in 2008.

Some solid work by Great Divide here, and a nice demolition of the notion that hoppy beer has to be brewery-fresh to be worth drinking.