Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Before GABF Arrives, September Is Rocking with Beer Events
We've reached the point where the Great American Beer Festival is only three weeks away. This is cause for celebration. But it shouldn't obscure what is right in front of us.
In fact, even as area breweries and beer bars plan their biggest events of the year for Denver Beer Fest week, they also are offering up releases, competitions and unique beer festivals that should not be missed in the latter half of this month. And to that point, here are a few things you may want to put on your beer calendar.
Friday, Sept. 13
* From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., budding amateur brewers from small companies across the area will serve up their wares at Colorado Startup Brews, an event that is part beer festival and part networking-with-a-brew, organized by local startup Ombud. Tickets are $30 for the event at the McNichols Center.
Saturday, Sept. 14
* From noon to 6 p.m., Raices Brewing will host Suave Fest, a first-of-its kind beer festival for Latino-owned breweries. Ten breweries will be pouring beer at Steam on the Platte, and Latin food trucks will be there to highlight the community's culinary enterprises. Tickets are $45.
* From 4 to 7 p.m., Beer Fight Club returns, pitting eight breweries against each other in a tournament-style competition decided by attendees. The latest event, at Pour Tap House in Commerce City, features Alpine Dog, Crystal Springs, Goldspot, Joyride, Mountain Cowboy, Peak to Peak, Something Brewery and Station 26. For the cost of $35, this is an underrated event that not only offers great beer but also brings in knowledgeable crowds and brewers who want to discuss said beer.
Saturday, Sept. 21
* Burns Family Artisan Ales turns 1 year old - with a gusto. It will release Solar Eclipse, an 18.5% ABV Russian imperial stout aged in a Laws Whiskey barrel at midnight. After a short nap, owners Wayne Burns and Laura Worley will roll out seven other new beers after reopening around lunchtime, including a Deerhammer-barrel-aged old ale and a Grand Cru made with local honey. If you haven't visited the big-beer specialist yet, this is a good time to come and see what the hype is about.
Sunday, Sept. 22
* This will be the last day for Denver International Airport's beer flights, an annual event (pictured at top) that's been going on since Sept. 9 at which a $10 ticket will get you up to 20 two-ounce samples of Colorado's finest. Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., beers from the likes of Avery, Great Divide, Left Hand, Odell and Wibby will be poured.
Friday, Sept. 27
* Black Shirt Brewing will celebrate its seventh anniversary - yes, RiNo's second-oldest brewery has hit that milestone - in its beer garden with the special tappings, music and pizza that have earned it its reputation as a must-hit stop among Denver breweries.
Special Tappings
* Sept. 12: Jagged Mountain Mountain Grouse, a blood orange gose with coriander and pink sea salt
* Sept. 13: Seedstock Brewing taps its first English Special Bitter
* Sept. 13: Bruz Beers taps its Autumn Peach Ale, earning the ire of A-B marketing a-holes
* Sept. 18: Intersect Brewing of Fort Collins taps Seamstress for the Band Munich Helles
* Sept. 20: Strange Craft Beer brings back its annual Pumpkin Porter
We've reached the point where the Great American Beer Festival is only three weeks away. This is cause for celebration. But it shouldn't obscure what is right in front of us.
In fact, even as area breweries and beer bars plan their biggest events of the year for Denver Beer Fest week, they also are offering up releases, competitions and unique beer festivals that should not be missed in the latter half of this month. And to that point, here are a few things you may want to put on your beer calendar.
Friday, Sept. 13
* From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., budding amateur brewers from small companies across the area will serve up their wares at Colorado Startup Brews, an event that is part beer festival and part networking-with-a-brew, organized by local startup Ombud. Tickets are $30 for the event at the McNichols Center.
Saturday, Sept. 14
* From noon to 6 p.m., Raices Brewing will host Suave Fest, a first-of-its kind beer festival for Latino-owned breweries. Ten breweries will be pouring beer at Steam on the Platte, and Latin food trucks will be there to highlight the community's culinary enterprises. Tickets are $45.
* From 4 to 7 p.m., Beer Fight Club returns, pitting eight breweries against each other in a tournament-style competition decided by attendees. The latest event, at Pour Tap House in Commerce City, features Alpine Dog, Crystal Springs, Goldspot, Joyride, Mountain Cowboy, Peak to Peak, Something Brewery and Station 26. For the cost of $35, this is an underrated event that not only offers great beer but also brings in knowledgeable crowds and brewers who want to discuss said beer.Saturday, Sept. 21
* Burns Family Artisan Ales turns 1 year old - with a gusto. It will release Solar Eclipse, an 18.5% ABV Russian imperial stout aged in a Laws Whiskey barrel at midnight. After a short nap, owners Wayne Burns and Laura Worley will roll out seven other new beers after reopening around lunchtime, including a Deerhammer-barrel-aged old ale and a Grand Cru made with local honey. If you haven't visited the big-beer specialist yet, this is a good time to come and see what the hype is about.
Sunday, Sept. 22
* This will be the last day for Denver International Airport's beer flights, an annual event (pictured at top) that's been going on since Sept. 9 at which a $10 ticket will get you up to 20 two-ounce samples of Colorado's finest. Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., beers from the likes of Avery, Great Divide, Left Hand, Odell and Wibby will be poured.
Friday, Sept. 27
Special Tappings
* Sept. 12: Jagged Mountain Mountain Grouse, a blood orange gose with coriander and pink sea salt
* Sept. 13: Seedstock Brewing taps its first English Special Bitter
* Sept. 13: Bruz Beers taps its Autumn Peach Ale, earning the ire of A-B marketing a-holes
* Sept. 18: Intersect Brewing of Fort Collins taps Seamstress for the Band Munich Helles
* Sept. 20: Strange Craft Beer brings back its annual Pumpkin Porter
Labels: Beer Fight Club, Black Shirt Brewing, Bruz Beers, Burns Family Artisan Ales, Intersect Brewing, Jagged Mountain Brewery, Raices Brewing, Seedstock Brewing, Strange Craft Beer
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Black Shirt: True to Itself
(This is part of a semi-regular series of posts about breweries that have opened since May 2011, when I published "Mountain Brew: A Guide to Colorado's Breweries.")
Every brewery has its own story. But few can claim such great back stories that they simply compel you to like them as much as Black Shirt Brewing, which opened roughly one year ago in Denver's RiNo neighborhood.
Walking in and ordering a pint, you'll notice two things right away. Every option on the menu is red in color. And the glassware is like nothing out of which you've ever drank, a convex wine-like glass (pictured above) that covers your nose while you sip to require you to take to take in the beer's full aroma.
The red is an homage to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that overlooked the boyhood home of brother-owners Chad and Branden Miller in Westcliffe. It was a small town they ran from in order to make more of themselves, but it was a place they came to appreciate more when they were gone, explained Chad (pictured at right) on a recent night.
The glassware speaks to the originality and nonconforming spirit of this brewery, which doesn't have big bottling aspirations and doesn't enter competitions like the Great American Beer Festival. It doesn't blow your palate with extreme beers; it just wants you to enjoy a variety of red delicacies, served in what is now an out-of-the-way location that soon will be one of the new hearts of Denver's brewing scene.
There is, for example, the Red Ale, which is a well done red, with notes of coffee and caramel on its edges, that adds just a bit more hops than usual for the style to make its backbite more interesting. And there's the Red IPA (they have almost no unique names in order to note the simplicity of their beers), which is sharp, bubbly and malt-balanced to the point where you almost want more hop astringency. These are good beers, but not complex.
The flavor profile ramps up a bit with the Sour Mash Red Saison, which gets the sour from its malt rather than its yeast, leaving it with an overall tart-cherry taste, but one that's not blistering. The Red Porter too is an eyebrow-raiser - a musty, heavy dark beer that has a subtle overtone of blackberry to it and is more refreshing than most of its ilk.
Maybe the best of the bunch is the one uniquely monikered beer on the menu - the once-a-year-made Red Evelyn Ale, named after the Millers' grandmother, who raised them as she ran the town store. Her house was surrounded by pine trees and she served grapefruit for breakfast, so the boys concocted a piney hop bomb in which Citra, Simcoe and Amarillo hops all are featured prominently. It's an impressive mouthful, though one that never goes too far.
That beer, in fact, may be emblematic of the full spirit of this brewery, which is well worth a visit. It's based in Colorado roots. It's unpretentious. (The Millers wore black shirts as kids because they were poor but at least could look like Johnny Cash.) And it's going to serve you a variety of beers that won't reset your standards for the art of brewing but will leave you walking away knowing that everything you tasted was quality, done in a very unique way.
Every brewery has its own story. But few can claim such great back stories that they simply compel you to like them as much as Black Shirt Brewing, which opened roughly one year ago in Denver's RiNo neighborhood.
Walking in and ordering a pint, you'll notice two things right away. Every option on the menu is red in color. And the glassware is like nothing out of which you've ever drank, a convex wine-like glass (pictured above) that covers your nose while you sip to require you to take to take in the beer's full aroma.
The red is an homage to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that overlooked the boyhood home of brother-owners Chad and Branden Miller in Westcliffe. It was a small town they ran from in order to make more of themselves, but it was a place they came to appreciate more when they were gone, explained Chad (pictured at right) on a recent night.The glassware speaks to the originality and nonconforming spirit of this brewery, which doesn't have big bottling aspirations and doesn't enter competitions like the Great American Beer Festival. It doesn't blow your palate with extreme beers; it just wants you to enjoy a variety of red delicacies, served in what is now an out-of-the-way location that soon will be one of the new hearts of Denver's brewing scene.
There is, for example, the Red Ale, which is a well done red, with notes of coffee and caramel on its edges, that adds just a bit more hops than usual for the style to make its backbite more interesting. And there's the Red IPA (they have almost no unique names in order to note the simplicity of their beers), which is sharp, bubbly and malt-balanced to the point where you almost want more hop astringency. These are good beers, but not complex.
The flavor profile ramps up a bit with the Sour Mash Red Saison, which gets the sour from its malt rather than its yeast, leaving it with an overall tart-cherry taste, but one that's not blistering. The Red Porter too is an eyebrow-raiser - a musty, heavy dark beer that has a subtle overtone of blackberry to it and is more refreshing than most of its ilk.
Maybe the best of the bunch is the one uniquely monikered beer on the menu - the once-a-year-made Red Evelyn Ale, named after the Millers' grandmother, who raised them as she ran the town store. Her house was surrounded by pine trees and she served grapefruit for breakfast, so the boys concocted a piney hop bomb in which Citra, Simcoe and Amarillo hops all are featured prominently. It's an impressive mouthful, though one that never goes too far.
That beer, in fact, may be emblematic of the full spirit of this brewery, which is well worth a visit. It's based in Colorado roots. It's unpretentious. (The Millers wore black shirts as kids because they were poor but at least could look like Johnny Cash.) And it's going to serve you a variety of beers that won't reset your standards for the art of brewing but will leave you walking away knowing that everything you tasted was quality, done in a very unique way.
Labels: Black Shirt Brewing, New Colorado breweries
