Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Great Divide DPA

I recently picked up an assortment pack of beers from Great Divide Brewing Company in Denver, Colorado.  The Denver Pale Ale is the first pale ale I have sampled in a long time.  Traditionally, I'm not a huge fan of pale ales, but I am forcing myself to include a few in my tasting regimen.  Pale ales are quite bitter by nature, and I have to be in just the right mood to really want one in front of me.  Those moods don't come as frequently as my interest in the more balanced and malty brews that I have been tasting lately. 

From the bottle:

DPA is a world-renowned, classic pale ale with a malty middle and equally hearty complement of hop aroma, flavor and bitterness.

That's pretty generic, but it's all I have to go on at the moment from the brewer.  It seems that their website is dysfunctional at the moment and won't let me into their beer selections.

I had this beer in my fridge for a couple hours before I was ready to taste it, and it may have gotten a tad too cold.  I had a foam explosion as soon as it hit the glass, and it took me 10 minutes or so just to get it all in the glass.  These Great Divide beers are also unfiltered, which means there will be a little sediment from the beer in the bottom of the bottle.  When you pour this beer, some of that might find it's way into the glass and make the beer a little cloudy, which is OK.  I started sampling while it was really cold and kept working on it all the way through about 65 degrees to find the point where the best hop and malt presence showed up, and it was somewhere between 50 and 55 degrees.  The hop bite on this beer slows down as it gets warmer than that. 

I tasted my Marzen this evening, and it's coming along nicely.  The carbonation level is good and the flavor still needs to mature just a bit longer.  I'll be tasting it again next week after it has been in the bottle for four weeks.  Traditionally, this style of beer benefits greatly from aging in the bottle.  The interesting bit of history about the Marzen is that it is the traditional Oktoberfest beer, but it's brewed in March to give it plenty of time to age properly prior to the drinking in the month of October.  The color of the beer is just a bit darker than I had anticipated, but the flavor is on target.  My Orange Blossom Special is still fermenting.  It's been in the fermenter for a week now and I'll probably let it go for at least another week and possibly two depending on what it looks like next weekend.  I'll take a gravity reading next weekend and see where the fermentation is exactly and make a decision from that point.  I won't be racking this wheat beer to a secondary.  I'll bottle it as soon as the fermentation is finished...