An Amateur Beer Snob's Guide to Beer: The G Beers

What you will find below

Below is a partial alphabetical listing of the beers I tasted from December 1997 to October 2009, all 527 beers. I have tasted many of these beers more than once to make sure of my thoughts on them.

The listings below will include the name of the beer, my numerical ranking based upon my own scale of 0.1 to 10.0, and a little of my personal thoughts about each beer.

G Beers

Geary's Hampshire Special Ale (Winter 1996-1997)

3.4

Yet another strong, spice, cinnamon-esque brew for winter. I wish breweries would come up with something new for Christmas and winter time. These holiday beers suck.

Geary's Pale Ale

7.8

Nice label with an old-fashioned ink drawing of a lobster. A solid, wet and frothy pale ale that isn't overly bitter. A little bit of a bitter kick when swallowing, but not much. Brewed and bottled by D.L. Geary Brewing Company in Portland, Maine.

Genesee Beer

2.9

Made by the Genesee Brewing Co. of Rochester, New York. It's wet with a little carbonation and some beer taste, but very little. I gave it as high a score as I did simply because it had so little taste that it didn't taste awful, though it wasn't good either. If any of that made sense.

Genny Cream Ale

1.9

The Genesee Brewing Co. of Rochester, New York puts out this drink. Fairly smooth despite all the carbonation, but there is little flavor. Stay away.

Golden Promise Ale

5.9

A sweet brown ale that is apparently made only with organically-grown hops and barley by The Caledonian Brewery of Edinburgh, Scotland. Smooth enough that you could drink this stuff all night long. Has a nice head to it.

Goose IslandBlonde Ale

6.9

The Goose Island Beer Company works out of Chicago, Illinois, and has apparently won all kinds of awards. As with most Goose Island beers, this one goes down smooth. The flavor is slightly bitter.

Goose Island Hex Nut Brown Ale

6.7

This beer isn't as strong as the color would make you think. It's actually fairly bland the first few sips, but goes down smooth and malty. The more you drink the stronger it gets, but it's still not very strong. A little caramel and burnt taste. Even though the taste isn't very strong, this beer is so smooth it is worth drinking.

Goose Island Honker's Ale

6.3

A good, bitter flavor without a lot of fizz. Smooth going down. Thanks to the Goose Island people for letting me use their logo for my old Web site, Ty’s Pages for Beer Snobs, which is now defunct.

Great Divide Whitewater Wheat Ale

6.4

This Denver, Colorado, brew is light and wet with some sweetness. A pretty good drinking brew as long as the sweetness doesn't grow too strong on you.

Great LakesBarrel Select Pils

6.4

Probably the strongest pilsner-style beer I've ever had. Tastes more like a strong lager or maybe a sweet amber beer. Not a bad beer, but not quite up to the usual standards of the Great Lakes Brewing Co.

Great Lake Burning River Pale Ale

8.9

A little history lesson: In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in northern Ohio caught fire - yes, I said the river caught FIRE. Since then, northern Ohio - especially the city of Cleveland - has cleaned itself up quite nicely. Still, some folks today laugh about the burning river incident. Thus Burning River Pale Ale was born. This brew has won numerous gold and silver prizes and is known as one of the best American pale ales around. The flavor is quite strong with a powerful bitter/fruity zing. Goes down very smooth. Goes well with chunky peanut butter and honey on french bread (yes, I've tried this).

Great Lake Christmas Ale

4.8

Enough is enough. If you who are reading this just happen to be a brewer or someone with some say at a brewery, STOP making these spiced holiday brews. Even good brewers, such as Great Lakes, are making these sorry drinks. As always, lots of cinnamon flavor here with some ginger thrown in. YUCK!

Great Lake Cleveland Brown Ale

6.2

The Great Lakes Brewing Co. has made another fine beer here. This one honors autumn and the Cleveland Browns football team. This brew is one of the better brown ales, with a slight sweetness and maybe a little too much carbonation.

Great Lake Conway's Irish Ale

7.4

This excellent brew comes from the Great Lakes Brewing Co. of Cleveland, Ohio. As of this tasting, I have yet to have a bad beer from this brewery. This beer is smooth and burnt tasting. Goes down well. Good and frothy. Pretty bitter with a touch of fruitiness. This beer was the World Champion at the 1995 World Beer Championships in Chicago, Illinois. The beer is named after a Cleveland police officer who is the grandfather of two co-owners of this brewery.

Great LakeDortmunder Gold

8.4

Pretty smooth, some froth. Has won numerous awards. Good flavor. A good beer snobs beer but smooth enough for beginning-to-mid-rank beer tasters to ease in with.

Great Lake Edmund Fitzgerald Porter

7.3

Strong, not-quite-but-almost stoutish burnt taste. Pretty smooth.

Grimbergen Double

6.1

Over-the-top sweet. Not for sissies. This dark ale apparently has been brewed since 1128 by monks in a monastery just north of Brussels, Belgium. Goes down smooth, but it's so sweet it tastes more like wine than beer.

Grimbergen Triple

5.8

This has got to be the sweetest beer I have ever tasted. What taste there is, isn't bad, but it's so hard to get to it through all the sweetness. Only truly experienced beer tasters should even think about trying this. So sweet I couldn't finish a bottle (but it was a big bottle). Has a strong alcohol aftertaste.

Grolsch Amber Ale

5.5

There is a little strength to this brew from Holland, so beer snob novices beware. The taste is dry but smooth. A decent drink to go along with cheese and crackers.

Grolsch Premium Lager

3.8

A pretty weak but wet beer. A Heineken wannabe (and that's sad). For beer snob wannabes. You can get better for the price.

Grolsch Summer Blond

4.3

Wet with lots of froth and touch of lemon. Reminds me a little of Rolling Rock but not even that strong.

Gueuze Cantillon Lambic

9.9

An instant tartness kicks in when you taste this - not quite overpowering, but definitely surprising. Has an apple cider texture and feel. No fizz - goes down smoother than any other beer I can think of at the moment. Many beer drinkers - even experienced ones - probably would not know this was a beer unless you told them. This ale from Belgium is a combination of a lambic made several years back and a recently made lambic, then aged several years in the bottle for bottle fermentation.

Guinness Draught

8.4

This is basically Guinness in a can in the United States, though it's supposed to taste like Guinness straight from the tap. It doesn't taste that good, but it's still worth drinking. Comes from Dublin, Ireland. Has an extremely smooth head to it; in fact, the smoothest, frothiest head on any beer I've ever had. Has the Guinness strength to it. Not quite as tasty as Guinness Extra Stout (perhaps because it's from a can) but still has plenty of burnt caramel flavoring. Only for true beer tasters.

Guinness Extra Stout

9.6

Much too strong for beginner beer snobs. This is a good strong food beer, especially with mustard, pretzels and peppers. For something adventurous, try a bottle of Guinness with a 1/2 cup or cup of lime juice - it kills much of the strength and gives you a different taste entirely. Guinness is one of the thickest, stoutest and strongest beers there is - a six pack will get you very wasted. This is my favorite of all the stouts.

Quote from Oscar Wilde

Work is the curse of the drinking class.

Other beer links

The Amateur Beer Snob's Guide to Beer: The A Beers

The Amateur Beer Snob's Guide to Beer: The E Beers

The Amateur Beer Snob's Guide to Beer: The F Beers