Thursday, April 22, 2021
What's Happening? Denver Beer Is Earning Attention
Denver Beer Co. has never been a boring brewery. From its inception, it turned its beers over frequently and came up with new flavors, from its lovingly received Graham Cracker Porter to its divisively delicious William Wallace Scottish Ale. And it won a lot of Great American Beer Festival medals on the way, including a Colorado-high three in 2020.
Still, the brewery never seemed to become a trend-setter — even though it was one of the pioneers of the city's taproom scene when it opened a decade ago — or one of the must-visit beer-geek stops, even as the patio of its original Platte Street location always teemed with people. Because of several things that have happened in recent months, however, that may be changing.
The brewery made a splash on St. Patrick's Day when it opened its third location, this one in a former garage (like its first two taprooms) in south Denver's Rosedale neighborhood. Just having another location isn't gutsy in itself, but the brewery restaurant includes a one-barrel pilot system for making offerings exclusive to that spot, and an opening-day selection that included a balanced black currant kettle sour and a bold-but-not-too-big campfire coffee stout showed that its creative juices already were flowing well.
But what happened about a month-and-a-half before that could be even more impactful to Denver Beer's place in the sprawling, spectacular Front Range scene. In an announcement that seemed to fly too far under the radar, the brewery announced that it had hired Andy Parker (shown below with his lab, Pete) to be its director of innovation — the same Andy Parker that played a major role in gaining national experimental-darling status for Avery Brewing in an 18-1/2-year career there where he launched its barrel program and grew it to a collection of some 4,000 barrels.
Beer geeks might see the move as an odd one, going from a brewery that attracted throngs of devotees each year at GABF to one whose reputation is one that is more for its tasty accessible beers and is concentrated on its Front Range fans. But as Parker said in an interview earlier this year, the jump isn't so strange upon further examination.
While Avery was a smaller and more free-flowing brewery when Parker started there, it blew up in recent years, particularly with the 2015 opening of its $28 million brewery/restaurant in Boulder County featuring not one but two 30-tap tasting rooms. It sold part of the independent brewery two years later to Spanish brewer Mahou San Miguel, which now owns the majority of Avery, and moved a lot of its effort in recent years to more universally drinkable, nationally sold beers.
Denver Beer, meanwhile, has put its efforts into side projects that keep the beer local and ramp up its flavor profiles, such as the mid-2018 opening of Cerveceria Colorado, which offered an entirely new take on Mexican beers, based on the travels of then-head-brewer Jason Buehler, who passed away late last year. Denver Beer has captured five GABF medals in the past two years, including three for its often-overlooked barrel offerings, and its improvements haven't been lost on Parker.
"Just being a beer geek who's interested in beer, I've been watching Denver Beer get better and better for a decade," he said. "I love to focus on a local market, on Colorado's creativity and lifestyle."
And yes, Parker does plan to ramp up Denver Beer's barrel program, though he said he won't do it to Avery-like magnitude. But he also wants to make beers that can be fermented and sold fairly quickly, so he gets to enjoy the feedback of drinkers who are finding new tastes.
That may just include lighter efforts. The Love This City pilsner, which Denver Beer released early last month in collaboration with artist Pat Milbery, is a subtly delicious take on the classic style, hopped a little bit more liberally for late-breaking bite but still tremendously easy and an all-night sipper. When I half-jokingly asked Parker what he will bring to Denver Beer's seltzer program, he said that he's looking a potential tequila-barrel-aged seltzer, which might be the first entry into the genre that could generate a double-take.
Denver Beer founders Charlie Berger and Patrick Crawford (shown below) said they brought Parker in because of his experience but also because of his seamless fit with the laid-back culture of the brewery. They expect passion, they said, and know that what flows from that will make their beer better.
Drinkers, meanwhile, should frankly recalibrate their expectations of Denver Beer, which may produce another raspberry kolsch or may go off on a route it hasn't traversed previously. But at this point, the brewery deserves recognition for being bold in ways that sometimes are hidden, and here's guessing it's going to get more of that in the coming years.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Denver Beer Co, Great American Beer Festival, pilsner
