Yet Another Fruity Post

This is an important piece of trivia that is very important to both myself and anyone reading this blog - I love fruity beers. Judge me all you want, but in general, if done correctly, I think there is huge potential for fruit flavorings to improve brews drastically (particularly in the drinkability department - try drinking five or ten of something straightforward and heavy like Old Chub or Guinness back to back, then try the same with something light and fruity like Purple Haze, and you'll see precisely what I mean). The significant downside to this is the likelihood of the fruit flavoring to overwhelm or completely drown out the more subtle aspects of the brew. In fact, this is so common that I find it almost impossible for fruity beers to skew heavily toward terrible or amazing - they simply consistently fall in the "pretty damn good" category (though there are of course exceptions, see my post on Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale).

Though not quite as reliable as blueberry, raspberry is definitely one of the more consistently successful beer/fruit fusions. And, accordingly, Great Divide has done an admirable job with their Wild Raspberry Ale. Like any above-average fruit-inspired brew, the raspberry taste is present with varying intensity throughout the drinking experience; it hits hard at first taste, then falls into the background to allow the more subtle elements of the ale to come forward, and finally returns in full force during the extended aftertaste. In terms of its execution of a fruit flavor, this is close to a ten out of ten.

The problem, though, with this beer is not it's choice or methodology of added flavor (as was the problem with the aforemention Punkin Ale), but instead lies in its underlying ale. Basically, Great Divide build an amazing raspberry structure on an unfortunately weak ale foundation. As soon as that raspberry flavor recedes mid-tasting, it becomes abundantly clear that if not for it this would simply be a subpar, unexceptional beer. It's a classic case of a brew hiding behind its hook - a drastic mistake in some cases (see Punkin yet again), and sometimes simply unfortunate, such as here.

Great Divide absolutely has the process to create a fruit-infused brew down. If it could only start improving its base formulas, the brewery could easily work its way up to being one of my favorites.

Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale
Overall Rating: 7/10