Saturday, August 22, 2015
A New Draw in the South Suburbs
Dave Miera, a carpenter and framer by trade, built the bars at Caution Brewing, Kokopelli Beer Co. and Stapleton Tap House. And then he decided to build his own brewery.
Boggy Draw Brewery opened last month in Sheridan, adding to the growing number of craft breweries dotting the south metro area. And early returns indicate that it's going to be a welcome addition to the Denver scene, with one beer seeming ready to shine as a unique standout.
That beer is Gangsta of Love, the brewery's cream ale aged in gin barrels. Pairing the sharp juniper taste with the lightly hopped and medium-bodied beer manages to create a flavor of its own, as notes of vanilla and caramel jump forward and combine with pin-pricks of gin taste to rev the beer up without making it overwhelming.
Boggy Draw - named after Miera's favorite hunting spot and festooned with deer heads and cow hides - has a couple of other gems ups its camouflaged sleeve as well. The Ese Bueno ESB is an Americanized and especially hoppy version of the style. The Lemondrop Pale Ale, a smash beer, is sharp with a citrus burst. And the Hefeweizen offers immediate hints of banana and bubble gum and is kicky and hopped enough to leave an impression.
Some of the offerings, like the Elk Mane Dark Wheat and the Boggy Bastard Southern Brown, are refreshing and pleasing, if not complex. A few - particularly the American Wheat and Belgian Pale - are quite light-bodied for their styles, coming and going without offending you but without creating anything to remember either.
It's amazing to think that, just four years ago, Denver's south suburbs largely were without breweries that were not connected to national brewpub chains. Now just about every suburb, including the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Sheridan, has their own. Some, like Lone Tree Brewing, are doing amazing things, while others are slower to catch up to the general quality level of the Front Range.
Boggy Draw begins its existence with a complement of quality beers and a few you'd want to drink over and over. And it really does give one more incentive for the Denver beer drinker to take a field trip to see what is happening to the south.
Dave Miera, a carpenter and framer by trade, built the bars at Caution Brewing, Kokopelli Beer Co. and Stapleton Tap House. And then he decided to build his own brewery.
Boggy Draw Brewery opened last month in Sheridan, adding to the growing number of craft breweries dotting the south metro area. And early returns indicate that it's going to be a welcome addition to the Denver scene, with one beer seeming ready to shine as a unique standout.
That beer is Gangsta of Love, the brewery's cream ale aged in gin barrels. Pairing the sharp juniper taste with the lightly hopped and medium-bodied beer manages to create a flavor of its own, as notes of vanilla and caramel jump forward and combine with pin-pricks of gin taste to rev the beer up without making it overwhelming.
Boggy Draw - named after Miera's favorite hunting spot and festooned with deer heads and cow hides - has a couple of other gems ups its camouflaged sleeve as well. The Ese Bueno ESB is an Americanized and especially hoppy version of the style. The Lemondrop Pale Ale, a smash beer, is sharp with a citrus burst. And the Hefeweizen offers immediate hints of banana and bubble gum and is kicky and hopped enough to leave an impression.
Some of the offerings, like the Elk Mane Dark Wheat and the Boggy Bastard Southern Brown, are refreshing and pleasing, if not complex. A few - particularly the American Wheat and Belgian Pale - are quite light-bodied for their styles, coming and going without offending you but without creating anything to remember either.
It's amazing to think that, just four years ago, Denver's south suburbs largely were without breweries that were not connected to national brewpub chains. Now just about every suburb, including the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Sheridan, has their own. Some, like Lone Tree Brewing, are doing amazing things, while others are slower to catch up to the general quality level of the Front Range.
Boggy Draw begins its existence with a complement of quality beers and a few you'd want to drink over and over. And it really does give one more incentive for the Denver beer drinker to take a field trip to see what is happening to the south.
Labels: Barrel aging, Boggy Draw Brewery, Caution Brewing, ESB, Kokopelli Beer Co, Lone Tree Brewing, New Colorado breweries, Stapleton Tap House
