Beer Run Blog

30 Colorado Beers You Have to Try at GABF 2017



America's most stunning beer festival is upon us, showing off 800 breweries from across the nation, some you will never find in Denver outside of their spotlights in the Colorado Convention from Oct. 5-7. But it is only the fool who would enter those hallowed halls and ignore this state's own fruits.

For Colorado brewers - and there are 161 of them that will be pouring at the Great American Beer Festival - are coming in from parts of the state you've likely never visited, and they are breaking out some one-offs and rarities you've certainly never tried. And there frankly might be a higher concentration of blow-your-taste-buds-out-with-delight offerings in the Mountain section of the great hall than in any other area - yes, even more than the Pacific.

With that in mind, here is an alphabetical list for locals and visitors alike of the beers you absolutely should stop by to try while you meander through the festival. A few you'll know; many you will not. This is the great joy of the event. (And big props to PorchDrinking.com for putting together its pre-GABF pour list that makes possible the study needed to compile this.)

* 4 Noses Experimental Double IPA: The Broomfield brewery has rocketed into the conversation of best IPAs in Colorado with its 'Bout Damn Time IPA. When it offers offer something bigger, hoppier and edgier, it's simply a must-try.

* AC Golden Colorado Native Kriek Noir: A stunningly tart beer (left) aged two years with cherries and then bottle-conditioned for another two, It will take your taste buds to the edge with its complexity and ultimately reward them.

* Avery Promiscuus: Very few brewers have used Madeira and port barrels to age their wares, and it's a shame. This beer, which I've only had in the Boulder Brewery's taproom, is bold and funky, and you'll swirl it around again and again to discern the flavors.

* Black Project Cygnus Double Montmorency: The great joy of Black Project is never quite knowing what its spontaneous fermentation will produce. But when the brewery takes three different years of barrel-fermented coolship ale and tosses them together with pounds and pounds of cherries, you know it will be special.

* Boulder Shake Chocolate Porter: America's oldest microbrewery may have hit on the best recipe in its 38-year history when it created this creamy, sweet and full chocolate porter that will give you a different taste to consider.

*  Broken Compass Coconut Porter: This mountain-town brewery not only cemented its reputation by winning a medal for this at its first GABF, it actually started to draw people out of the Denver area up to Breckenridge to seek this out.

* Caution Brewing The Earl: Lakewood's finest brewery employs a lot of unusual ingredients in its beer, but its use of Earl Grey tea to add a leafy presence to a surprisingly full-bodied English mild creates the most unique taste in its portfolio.


* City Star Belle: Arguably no brewery in Colorado has improved as much this year as City Star, which wowed earlier this year with its Wood Belly barrel-aged imperial IPA. So when the brewery decides it's going to uncork a barrel-aged sour oatmeal pale ale aged with passion fruit, you just want to see what it can do with that combination.

* Comrade Fresh Hop Superpower IPA: The year-round version of this beer is becoming the Colorado standard-bearer IPA for some hop heads. And this is the kicked-up version that is only available for a limited time.

* Copper Kettle Snowed In Mocha: Snowed In, a bourbon-barrel imperial oatmeal stout, is one of the finest Christmastime beers in the state. So, what will a little coffee and chocolate do to the body? That's kind of the point to buying tickets to the GABF.

* Crooked Stave Trellis Buster: These guys are some of Colorado's sour kings. But when they pour a beer they describe as their hoppiest beer ever, you eagerly ask for this dry-hopped double IPA.

* Dry Dock Pumpkin Double Porter: The double hazelnut brown ale and the double hazelnut coffee porter were out of this world. This is the next iteration of the concept, and appropriate for the season.

* Fate Brewing Pinot Noir Gose: Take one of your signature beers, age it with pinot noir grape must, sit back and enjoy.

* Funkwerks Nelson Sauvin: This beer combines one of the most appealing hops available today with the body of a saison to produce a rainbow of flavors.

* Great Divide The Smoothness: First offered last year, this Jameson-barrel-aged dark lager has enough body to stand up to Irish whiskey overtones but not too much to render the barrel moot.

* Horse & Dragon Sad Panda Coffee Stout: As good a year-round dark beer as is made in Colorado, this gives you not just the roasted taste of the coffee but also the vanilla mouthfeel of a creamer that was placed into it.

* Jagged Mountain Grouse Mountain Gose: The underlying beer is good, but when it's made with blood oranges, coriander and sea salt, it becomes damn good.

* Jessup Farm Cross-Drinker: Whiskey Sour: Strong ale aged in whiskey barrels, blended with a dark sour, all mashed up with lemon puree. Expect this to be maybe the most complex Colorado beer at the festival.

* Locavore Two Fingers IPA: This is the IPA that you're not drinking but should be. Hints of orange and mango highlight a full body that won Beer Fight Club II, defeating some of the state's best IPAs in the process.

* Mountain Sun Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Chocolate Thunder Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout: Stout Month comes just once a year at the Mountain Sun pubs, so when they take some aged stash of one of their monster darks and offer it up more than half a year later, it's worth a visit.

* New Belgium Le Terroir with Amarillo and HBC #522: It's the brewery's phenomenal hopped sour ale, barrel aged and then dry-hopped with experimental hops. Just say that over and over again while you wait for the line to subside.

* New Image East Coast Transplant: This hazy double IPA from the under-the-radar Arvada brewery is no less than the second-best Colorado example of this hot style. And it's a brewery to know.

* Odell-Avery Collaboration Stout: Made specifically for GABF, this white stout/dark stout combo is only the product of two of the best breweries in Colorado. How could you go wrong?

* Ratio Beerworks New Wave Strawberry Berliner Weisse: Arguably the most tart yet approachable Berliner Weisse made in Colorado, this summer seasonal had a too-short stint on the brewery's menu, but now it's back.

* Ska Brewing Tart Mexican Logger: Ska's new Mod Project is all about creating experimental new flavors. And here's guessing this may be the only sour Mexican lager on the GABF floor.

* Strange Craft Beer Strangely Epic: This blend shouldn't work. Yet, the combination of Strange's Cherry Kriek and Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout does, and it's memorable.

* Telluride Face Down Bourbon Brown: The beer that kick-started Colorado's brown ale revolution is served up after aging in bourbon barrels. Bring it on.

* The Intrepid Sojourner Basil IPA: Though a recent addition to the Colorado portfolio, this Denver brewery quickly has gained a reputation for thoughtful and unusual beers. This is a combination that someone should have thought of before.

* Verboten Little Nonsense: This whiskey-barrel-aged imperial oatmeal stout is a dangerous beer, so smooth and tasty at 11% ABV that you may think you can drink several. Good thing it comes in a one-ounce sample for GABF.

* Weldwerks Extra Extra Juicy Bits: The key phrase you need to know about this New England-style double IPA is "more than 11 pounds of Citra, Mosaic and El Dorado hops per barrel." Read it and weep for joy.

Labels: AC Golden, Avery Brewing, Caution Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Mountain Sun, Ratio Beerworks

Top 10 Colorado Beers of 2016



At a time when it seemed everyone was focused on something other than beer, Colorado breweries flew seemingly under the radar with their greatness during the year that just ended. The best and most memorable offerings came not from adding exotic new ingredients (with one exception) or from trying to ratchet alcohol or tartness to new levels, but from simplifying, aging a bit and just doing everything well.

So, before we bid goodbye to 2016 altogether, let's stop and admire once again the 10 beers that made the year one worth remembering.

10) 4 Noses Pump Action Imperial Pumpkin Ale
When your beer takes gold in the pumpkin categories for both the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival in the same year, you know you have something special on your hands. What makes Pump Action stand out so much is its offering of a significant body (nearly 8 percent ABV) without overbearing alcohol or spice content. It's just smooth and silky.

9) Trinity Saison Delivery
One of Colorado's true saison specialists broke new ground even by its lofty standards with this gem, first made for the 2016 Craft Brewers Conference. Colorado apple, grains of paradise and dark candy sugar made this decidedly fruit-forward, while the Chardonnay-barrel aging gave it a slight pucker. Wrap it up, and it became a pretty eye-opening combination.

8) Great Divide The Smoothness
Black lager can be a forgettable style - right up until you decide to age it in Jameson barrels and imbue the lighter-bodied beer with a whiskey flavor that was perfectly balanced and managed to breathe new life into the simple malts in the beer. I'll come back to Great Divide at more length later, but this beer was shocking in its simplicity and tastiness.

7) Beryl's Beer Trent's Plums
If plum was a favorite new additive in 2016, no one made it sing more than this too-often-overlooked Denver brewery that brought out the fruit's tart properties by letting it age for two years in red-wine barrels with a sour brown ale. It took your taste buds right up to the edge but walked that delicate line of being significantly sour without being too acerbic.


6) AC Golden Kriek Noir
Speaking of pushing sour taste to the edge, Coors' experimental brewery - which also did some excellent work on the lighter end of the spectrum this year - made its own statement with this wine-barrel-aged Belgian ale with sour cherries added (pictured above). Almost sweet on the nose, this was aggressive and cutting in its flavor profile, rewarding drinkers with a constantly evolving complexity that was simultaneously edgy and refreshing.

5) Comrade Yellow Fever
Colorado's new poster child for hop-drenched beers showed off its versatility by ramping up the flavor profile of this Citra blonde ale infused with jalapenos and nabbing a World Beer Cup medal for it. With a mild look and less-than-fiery nose, this beer surprised twice. First, it announced its rising heat only as you swirled Yellow Fever in your mouth. Second, it let that heat cool just when you thought it might be too much, creating an exhilarating experience.


4) Weldwerks Double Dry Hopped Juicy Bits
You may love or hate the "New England IPA" trend, but you can not walk away from this beer (pictured above) - a hopped-up version of the Greeley brewery's hazy IPA - without feeling like you have somehow found a new frontier of a style of beer (IPA) that leaves few surprises anymore. It pelts you with fruity and grassy overtones without any lingering bitterness, allowing you to enjoy the hops for all the flavor they can impart. It's the kind of IPA that can make hop haters rethink their sentiments.

3) Crooked Stave Raspberry Petite Sour
While Crooked Stave is known rightly for its astringent, taste-bud-pushing creations, it may have found its greatest success yet by stepping just slightly off the pedal and letting the fruit and wild yeast mingle in a pleasing, almost soft way here. Eye-poppingly pink in its pour, this is both sweet and tart, both bullish on its wild side and more concerned with its fruit than its acid. It simply is delicious.

2) Spangalang Anniversary Ale
To celebrate its first birthday, this rising Denver star blended several of its hop-forward beers, combining barrel-aged and fresh IPAs in one big, never-again-reproducible batch. In doing so, it produced the most interesting one-off beer made in this state in years, a taste-bud-wowing experiment that was simultaneously hoppy and woody, earthy and pleasingly bitter. Before it turns two, Spangalang already is making some of the best beer in Colorado; this was evidence of just how much better it can be.

1) Great Divide Barrel-Aged Hercules
Ever since my book "Mountain Brew" came out in 2011, I've been asked what is my favorite brewery in Colorado. I usually duck the question but, when cornered, have tended to identify Great Divide as the single best in this state. By the end of 2015, though, I was starting to question that long-held assumption, wondering if the long-time experimental brewery was starting to lose ground to others that were innovating more. Then, everything changed this year.

Great Divide's barrel-aging program, which has been in place for years but got a major boost with the 2015 opening of its Barrel Bar on Brighton Boulevard, elevates this brewery into a class of its own for several reasons. First, it allows it to rediscover and reinvent already top-tier offerings and bring out new flavors in them, from its Old Ruffian barleywine to the aforementioned black lager. But second, it does so without simply dropping beers into wild-yeast-ridden barrels and turning everything sour. Its usage of oak and whiskey barrels that deepen the flavor and body of the beers gives it a real personality in an atmosphere when even great breweries begin to seem a little bit like each other in their experiments.

Putting its Hercules Double IPA into whiskey barrels for two years before unleashing this beast at its 22nd anniversary party this summer was the best beer idea of the year. The hops retained an amazingly out-front presence despite their age, and the whiskey took on just a supporting role, as wood and vanilla notes blended seamlessly with Cascade and Simcoe hops. Like much of the best of 2016, this didn't break new ground in flavor profiles. It just brought a classic recipe to bear in a new and better way that will set the mark for this brewery and all others going forward.

Labels: 4 Noses Brewing, AC Golden, Beryl's Beer, Comrade Brewing, Crooked Stave, Great Divide, Spangalang Brewery, Top Beers of Year, Trinity Brewing, Weldwerks Brewing

A Plum Good Idea

Brewers can take the same fruit and do wildly different things with it. In different hands, for example, a strawberry can be be a perfect sweet complement to the tartness of a Berliner Weisse or the added lightener to a blonde ale that makes it saccharine and undrinkable. So, it's pretty difficult to paint a fruit with one description in regard to its presence in beer.

That said, a handful of breweries are proving in recent months that plum not only can be a special addition to zip up the flavor of an already strong base beer but that it might be one of the best additions discovered in a while in order to give a bullish, daring jolt to tart beers.

Maybe the most proving example of this theorem is Trent's Plums, which truly has become the stand-out offering of Beryl's Beer, the too-often-overlooked barrel-aging specialists in Denver's RiNo neighborhood. This is a beer that walks the delicate line between taste-bud-waking tartness and over-acidity. But somehow, it's the presence of the fruity, juicy plums, when added to this sour brown aged for two years in red-wine barrels, that cut back on the tinge just enough for you to be both shocked and pleased. And it's a beer (tucked somewhere in the three tasters pictured above) that will make you go out of your way to stop at the brewery and try it again.

AC Golden put forth a slightly more puckery, but ultimately very successful, barrel-aged effort this fall known simply as Colorado Native Plum. Though just 6.5 percent ABV, it's a big ol' mouthful of tart - astringent with just a hint of sweetness that is all natural and shows no hints of the granulated sugar that can mark other, lesser fruit sour efforts. It's a challenge whose aftertaste sticks around for quite a while, but it too is balanced just enough by the dark-fruit addition to this aggressive beer.

Those who attended the Great American Beer Festival this year may have been lucky enough to sample a wider range of plum beers - or they may well not have been. Plum lambic offerings from the likes of Reno's Brasserie Saint James and Arvada's Yak and Yeti generated big lines - and then ran out quickly.

Is plum the next hot ingredient? The tart beers employing the fruit certainly have a limited audience. But it's a group of drinkers likely to recognize the enormous taste in the previously untapped fruit and seek out other brewers who are willing to try their own versions.

Labels: AC Golden, Beryl's Beer, Brasserie Saint James, Fruit beers, Plum beers, Yak and Yeti

The Edge

The secret to every truly great complex beer is in how far it can push your taste buds without breaking them via an overdose of alcohol, tartness or heat. Finding the best of the best can mean pushing right to the edge and then pulling back.

Over the past few months, several breweries, both local and national, have come out with offerings that take you just to that edge before stopping and letting you enjoy a melange of flavors both challenging and satisfying. And as Great American Beer Festival approaches, it is worth recalling them, both to celebrate their daring and to hope that their makers bust a leftover keg or two out in the coming week.

Great Divide showed just how far it could push things this year with its whiskey-barrel-aged Hercules Double IPA, a 12 percent ABV hop bomb that debuted originally at its 22nd anniversary party as Ye Olde World IPA then had a much longer run than could have been imagined before it ran out in the taproom. It wasn't just the flourishing bitterness that remained strong after years in the barrels that made this beer stand out. Rather, it was the fact that you felt the boozy bite even over the strong vanilla and wood tastes, leaving so much going on that it really was head-turning.

Sam Adams also pushed the envelope with its Rebel Raw Double IPA, a limited-edition floral bomb made with seven pounds of hops per barrel that had just a 35-day shelf life in both of its first two batches. The 100 IBUs scorched the tongue in some ways but also gave it an incredibly full flavor, teeming with grassy hops balanced by significant malts. The alcohol in this 10 percent ABV concoction most certainly was present, but it took a surprising back seat in the bevy of tastes.

Comrade Brewing also pushed to the edge, but the hop-forward brewery did it in a different way with its Yellow Fever, a blonde ale infused with jalapenos. The World Beer Cup gold medalist presents itself as unassuming, but the heat rises as the beer swirls in your mouth, landing squarely on the back of your tongue. Unlike poorer renditions of the style, however, it stops at a level that leaves adrenaline pumping in you without any scars on your taste buds, making you want to go back and try it repeatedly.

AC Golden produced arguably the most edge-pushing sour beer of this year so far with its Kriek Noir (pictured at top), a wine-barrel aged Belgian ale with sour cherries added. This spring offering presented itself with a sugary cherry nose, followed quickly by a sharp tartness that cut into your taste buds and took over your mouth. It too managed to stop short of making you wince, however, instead ramping up every pressure point in a way that caused you to use multiple taste sectors, leaving you awash in flavors from its yeast profile and its additives.

Beers that take you to the edge truly should be celebrated - and produced over and over again.

Labels: AC Golden, Barrel aging, Comrade Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Great Divide, Sam Adams, sour Belgian

The Subtle, Surprising Tastes of Summer

Past summers have been marked by brewers taking intriguing turns with fruit beers or pulling unexpected flavors out of their hats, and 2016 is likely to see more of that. But as Memorial Day weekend rolls around, there also seems a pattern this year toward something decidedly old-fashioned - crisp, clean lagers or golden ales that don't dazzle the palate so much as they go down smoothly with a surprisingly high amount of quality.

Nothing typifies this trend as much as the new Colorado Native Pilsner from AC Golden. This is a Coors offshoot that has tried and missed with a number of bland variations on the all-Colorado lager before. But the recently released pilsner is a spot-on, authentically German-style creation that cleanses the palate and finishes with a very subtle bite of hops to remind you it's got something more.

And if AC Golden surprises with its fresh entry into the lager market, maybe an even bigger surprise comes from Rock Bottom Denver. The Burro is an exceptionally smooth Vienna lager with a straw-hued body and a hint of nutty malt. Though one of the lightest beers currently on the brewpub's menu, it's arguably the most satisfying of the bunch.


It was be inaccurate to call maibocks summer beers, as they specifically are made for the spring season. But there are a couple that bring different characteristics to the current shoulder season. Strange Craft Beer's version weighs in at a meaty 7.5% ABV, and the slight alcoholic sting adds a new-world robustness to the old-world German flavor. Bristol Brewing's take on the style is more traditional and without much sweetness, but its full flavor reflects a good use of malt. I recently debated a server at Colorado Plus (see taster picture below) about which was better; the consensus was that you couldn't go wrong.

Not everything appropriate for the warmer-weather palate has to be of the lager variety, however. Dillon Dam's Go Devil Golden Strong Ale, sampled after a recent late-season ski run to the area, comes in at a full 9% ABV and packs the punch you might expect from the Belgian-style ale. But it also has a sweet, estery smoothness that translates well to mountain porch drinking, and should be sought out as such.

The summer season is almost upon us. Luckily, the beer offerings have beaten the calendar to our door steps, and the bounty looks impressive.

Labels: AC Golden, Bristol Brewing, Dillon Dam Brewery, Rock Bottom Brewery, Strange Craft Beer, Summer beers

The New Look of Coors' Crafty Side Projects


Not content to be known just as the folks who make a summer-appropriate Belgian wit and a light-bodied amber lager, Blue Moon Brewing and AC Golden are diversifying their lineups as of late. And while the two more experimental arms of Molson Coors Brewing are producing some mixed results with their new efforts, it's refreshing to see both putting forth this extra effort.

AC Golden — known by most for its Colorado Native but by serious beer geeks for some of its barrel-aged and sour efforts - is on schedule to produce four to five Colorado Native specialty beers this year. That effort began late last year with its India Pale Lager but has proceeded through the likes of saisons and golden ales as well.

The IPL is the best of AC Golden's mainstream experiments. A 62-IBU creation, its body is lighter than the traditional IPA, but the Chinook- and Centennial-hop kick is not dumbed down significantly. In fact, there is just a bit of an alcoholic bite belying the relatively moderate 6.5%-ABV character that adds a nice perk to its smooth taste.

Its Saison is a pleasant diversion, though not a standout of the style, and its Colorado Native Golden Lager is well made and easy, offering a fuller malt body than most lagers and carrying with it a German feel. But the Olathe Lager is a gimmick beer made with Olathe Sweet Corn that feels like a bad imitation of a standard American macro-brew in which the corn diminishes the flavor and adds a slightly stale backtaste.

Meanwhile, Blue Moon rolled out a Tripel White to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the brewery's namesake beer, developed during the first season of Coors Field as a brew to be served in the stands. And the tribute is sufficiently appropriate, as the new offering feels like Blue Moon on steroids with a big kick of orange peel (and a slight taste of coriander) to round out the flavor. Blue Moon has made bolder beers in recent years, such as its Cinnamon Horchata Ale, but the boundaries stretch just far enough here to produce a proper alcoholic summer brew.

Labels: AC Golden, Blue Moon Brewing

A Mighty Opening

Truth is, even the best of Colorado's breweries invariably opened with a hiccup. There was that beer that tasted slightly of butter. Maybe there was a selection on the menu that didn't measure up to the rest. Or maybe there just wasn't any standouts. It's happened to everyone.

Knowing this, then, is what makes Saturday's coming debut of Ratio Beerworks such an eye-opener. Yes, it's yet another brewery going into the most crowded beer neighborhood in all of Denver, RiNo. But unlike almost everyone else, it will open without an obvious flaw - and with a lineup of offerings that should impress even the most hardened beer geek.

Lead brewer Jason zumBrunnen - who founded the brewery at 2920 Larimer Street with partners Zach Lowery and Scott Kaplan (L to R in picture) - has brewed at Wynkoop and at AC Golden, and there are touches of both in his products. He shows the willingness to make a wide array of beer that has defined Wynkoop in recent years, while he also brings a creative edginess to his work that is reminiscent of the one-off releases that have made AC Golden so sought-after.

Take, as an example the beer that could become Ratio's calling card, a French saison named Dear You. Brewed and dry-hopped with Citra and made with 50 percent white wheat, this beer (also pictured above) presents itself with just a hint of tartness. And it finishes with a dryness that leaves you sated while also being intensely interested.

For the hop head there is Repeater, a 50-IBU extra pale ale with a lingering bitterness that is more effusive than biting. And for the lighter-bodied drinker there is Domestica, a 4.9% ABV American standard ale this is whirlpool-hopped in a way to create such a crispness that it makes you unable to brush this off as just another entry-level ale.

Along with Dear You, though, the standout and market original may be Hold Steady, a dark Scotch ale that manages to be highly roasted - almost peaty, in fact - without being overly heavy. For a limited time, Ratio will open with a second version of it infused with local Novo cold-pressed coffee that envelops the mouth in java without coming off as bitter.

Ratio already has a number of beers in the back aging in whiskey and other spirit barrels, and it's opening big - a 20-barrel system that will supply about 10 off-premise accounts almost from the day they tip the taps in their tasting area. And going into the former Mile High Spirits Distillery building, it begins life in a spot that's already been a center of RiNo activities.

Ratio won't be called one of the best breweries in Denver just yet. But with a solid and extremely flavorful lineup and ambitions to produce more complex beers quickly, it starts a step ahead of where many of the city's most advanced beer makers did. And that's a new and exciting trait to bring to a crowded local scene.

Labels: AC Golden, New Colorado breweries, Ratio Beerworks, Saisons, Wynkoop Brewery

Eight Beers That Stood Out at the 2015 Big Beers Festival


It was hard - really hard - to find a bad beer at the Big Beers Belgians & Barleywines Festival in Vail last weekend. Whether it was the slew of barrel-aged stouts, the profusion of tart but not overdone sours or the exciting number of beers that were brewing extremely well with spices, experimentation was alive and well.

But with the advantage of a few days to simmer on the multitude of flavors, a few beers rose to the top of the well-sipped heap at this wonderful event. And these are beers that will be worth looking for all year long - if some of these rarities can even be found.

Altitude Chophouse's Your Royal Chai-Ness
Year in and year out, this small Wyoming brewery brings something that makes you look - and return to their booth - twice. But it exceeded all of its past performances this year with what may have been the best beer of the festival, a chai-infused dunkelweizen that was so mellow in body and so sharply spicy in taste that it resembled a beer-y ginger soda.

Dry Dock Whiskey-barrel Aged Double Hazelnut Brown Ale
No brewery made the statement that malty beers are back quite so well as these Aurora auteurs, who offered up four dark, double barrel-aged beers. Easily the best, however, was this one, presenting a taste that was sweet and creamy and also vanilla and nutty, with the barrel standing out more than the whiskey did.

Goose Island Proprietary Blend
Bourbon County Stout is an awfully well-made beer. But this take on it, which added coconut water and simple syrup, made it not only more complex but dangerously drinkable for something this big.


Casey Brewing & Blending Saison
Troy Casey (seen here pouring for some clever beer writer) brought a lot of impressively bold farmhouse ales re-fermented with fruit like grapes and peaches. But at a festival of big beers, nothing was so palate-catching as his "simple" Saison - a concoction that was oak-barrel aged and wickedly sharp without being acidic.

AC Golden Dark Kriek
It was good to see that Casey left his former brewery in good hands, however. This blend of a golden sour and burgundy sour featured sharp, sharp cherry and a slight grape taste.

Former Future Brewing Black Project #2 - Jumpseat
Completing the dream sour/tart trio was this spectacularly tart spontaneously fermented ale that offered a taste of green apple on top of what could only be described as a gose-like beer made in a Belgian, rather than German, tradition.

Papago Brewing Coconut Joe
The star of Friday night's excellent Papago/Brouwerij Van Steenberge traditional brewmasters' dinner was this surprisingly sessionable (5.5% ABV) but roasty-sweet coconut coffee stout that paired spectacularly well with spiced peanut caramel apples (as the Beer Geekette ably demonstrates here).

Copper Kettle Brewing Mexican Chocolate Stout
This beer is way too well-known to call it a find anymore. But the reason it makes this list is that in a festival where high-gravity, experimentally spiced stouts had a bigger presence than ever, none packed the spicy/cinnamon/taste-bud-jolting punch of this emerging Colorado classic.

Labels: AC Golden, Altitude Chophouse and Brewery, Big Beers, Casey Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Festivals, Former Future Brewing, Goose Island, Papago Brewing

Five Things I Learned from Vail Big Beers 2014


Sam Calagione set the tone appropriately in declaring at Thursday's dinner that kicked off the 2014 Vail Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival that the event was "one of the top 10 beer festivals ... in the country." The next three days proved that, if anything, the Dogfish Head Brewery founder undersold it.

This was the year the Fearless Tasting Crew went big, splurging for a fantastic eating experience and gobbling up pretty much every seminar possible. And around every corner seemed a beer, a pairing, a bit of knowledge that opened more eyes.

The full spectrum of the lessons - and what they reveal about the current craft beer scene - will be played out here in the coming weeks over numerous columns. But it is worth saluting organizers Laura and Bill Lodge and noting a handful of things that stood out with all the subtlety of a Crooked Stave barrel-aged sour (which was on hand and wonderful).

1) Great Divide can still bring it
In a festival where one struggled to identify even a single disappointing beer (zero pour-outs in 3-1/2 hours of tasting for this guy), nothing stood out quite like Great Divide's Barrel Aged Grand Cru Cuvee. Aged in a single Syrah barrel, this creation screamed out all the joys of the festival - experimental, giant (12% ABV), tart (though not too much so) and stunningly balanced and drinkable.

Sometimes at the best festivals, people run to find the newest, hippest tastes - and those, mind you, are great. But 20 years into its life, this Denver legend still produces eye-opening surprises - enough to outdo even all the new kids on the block.

2) Sour is the new triple IPA
Sours have become more common, more clever and mixed with more ingredients in recent years. But now they appear to be going in the same direction that hop bombs went several years ago -  more extreme. The difference is, these results might speak better for the genre than the envelope-pushing hop races did.

Big Beers presented sours that were pleasantly pucker-worthy (Cambridge Brewing's Cerise Casee Solera-aged American Sour Ale) and brimming with fruit that accented the wild yeast perfectly (Grand Teton Barrel Aged Huckleberry Sour). But if that wasn't enough, you could find an intriguingly good smoked sour (Paradox Skully Barrel No. 7) and a tart beer made with local ingredients (AC Golden Gooseberry Colorambic). Amp it up and push the envelope away; it only seems to be getting better.

3) The art of pumpkin beers is not dead
Less than three months ago, I lamented that every pumpkin beer of 2013 seemed to be over-spiced or under-flavored. Then I found at Big Beers that I was just trying the wrong ones.

Fate Brewing's Barrel-Aged Imperial Smoked Pumpkin Ale had all the complexity that its name implied, but the smoke was light enough to be unobtrusive and the pumpkin was pure baked sweetness. Meanwhile, Wiley Roots Brewing's Apumpalyptic Imperial Ale was filled with non-biting spices and alcoholic warmth, just begging to be enjoyed in greater quantities than it should be.

4) Any Fort Collins tour without a stop in Loveland is wasted
Those who haven't visited Grimm Brothers Brewhouse in the past year are missing a significantly evolved beer maker that has moved beyond its traditional German roots to incorporate new styles. At the Vail Cascade, it broke out a complex Devil's Riddle again and supplemented that with a lightly soured Once Upon A Time American wild ale and a Grandfather Grim foreign export stout that was dark like a cookie.

But Verboten Brewing, also of Loveland, showed up every bit as big, especially with a Bourbon Barrel-Aged Mountain Man that had a vanilla underbelly softening the bourbon kick in a way that made it approachable. And Loveland Aleworks didn't slack a bit with an Imperial Stout that was as dark and rich as its 12.5% ABV denoted but surprisingly easy-bodied and pleasant.

5) For the 2015 festival, go big. You won't regret it.
Even at $108 per person, the Tasting Crew walked away from the Avery/Dogfish Head dinner convinced it was a bargain. The chefs at Atwater on Gore Creek crafted five courses of incredible offerings (beef sushi and Gingersnap-crusted venison, to name two) and not only paired them in a spot-on fashion but did so with beers - especially from Avery - that ranged from hard to impossible to find. (The return of the very limited Thensaurum, aged 18 months to tart perfection in rum barrels, may have been the biggest highlight.)


Beyond that, though, the chance to meander around not just for one day but for the weekend allowed good time to learn about nuances, whether it was at Friday night's winter seasonals session with four brewers or at a beer-cigar pairing where non-presenting breweries (I'm looking at you, Epic Brewing) brought their own stashes to share with crowd. And after a weekend of walking through so many treasures, one could treat Saturday not like a rush around the bigger and more spacious tasting area (pictured a few paragraphs above) but a chance to catch up again with brewers and enjoy the scene calmly.

Labels: AC Golden, Avery Brewing, Big Beers, Cambridge Brewing, Fate Brewing, Grand Teton Brewing, Great Divide, Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, Loveland Aleworks, Paradox Brewing, Verboten Brewing, Wiley Roots Brewing

Stop ... Lager Time

Labels: AC Golden, Manitou Springs, Mountain Brew book, Odell Brewing, Pug Ryan's, Rock Bottom Brewery, Rocky Mountain Brewery

Colorado Native: An (Almost) All-Colorado Beer

Labels: AC Golden, local ingredients