REVIEW: Great Divide Denver Pale Ale

Another day, another beer from one of my favorite breweries. This time Denver, Colorado's own Great Divide Brewing Company. I have not had a beer from them that I haven't liked. My beer tastes tend toward the big, the flavorful, the intense. This causes me to sometimes overlook some of the more standard beer styles. Case in point: I have never had this beer. Not that I don't like pale ales, I really do. But I usually pass them over for the India pales, the imperial India pales, the black India pales, and the like. But I was at Jungle Jim's and saw this bottle and decided to grab it. So, without further ado. To the beer!

From the label:

DPA is a world-renowned, classic pale ale with a malty middle and an equally hearty complinent of hop aroma, flavor and bitterness.
BRILLIANT | BALANCED
Gold Medal - World Beer Cup 2000
Gold Medal - Great American Beer Festival 1999
Bronze Medal - Great American Beer Festival 2006
Suggested Food Pairings - Grilled burgers or lamb, pasta with robust sauces such as Puttanesca.

I decanted the DPA into my Great Divide pint glass. (I always get a kick out of using the correct style glass for each beer, better yet when the brewery on the outside of the glass matches the one within! Hmm. Maybe I'll have to do an all glassware post in the future.) The beer pours a crystal clear amber color with a nice amount of pearly white head. The head receded fairly quickly but lingered enough to leave a good amount of lacing all the way down the glass. (Finally!)

The aroma is fairly subdued. Hints of grassy aromatic hops and some bready maltiness.

The first and probably most important thing that jumps out at you when tasting this beer is the balance. Great Divide touts this beer as being brilliant and balanced and they are not off the mark at all. The nice spicy hop taste is backed perfectly by the toasty malt presence. This is an eminently drinkable beer. very smooth with a mid-light body that finishes very clean with a nice bitterness. At only 5.4% Alc. by Vol. I could see this as a pretty damn good session beer. Easy to drink a few but tasty enough to not waste your time. This is one of the better English style pales I've had in quite some time.

HD