Thursday, February 01, 2018
Welcome to Stout Month
Back in 1994, when American breweries numbered only in the low hundreds, Paul Nashak had an idea that he thought might bring a few more people into his then-five-month-old Mountain Sun Pub during a slow time. He would load up his taps with stouts in February, call it Stout Month and maybe give folks a little extra reason to stop by.
Stout Month is no longer an idea. It's a full-blown movement that extends beyond the walls of Nashak's current five pubs and into breweries across Colorado that are setting aside more space in February for dark beers of their own creation. Many of those breweries are sending beers to be put on at Mountain Sun pubs. A few are even making beers that will be available only at Mountain Sun's locations this month.
Nashak, managing partner of the brewery, now gives talks on Stout Month. He lines up a wider variety of beers than he once imagined possible. He goes into the pub some days with a certain beer on tap and leaves only when that tap is on its third different creation of the day.
And he loves that everyone wants a piece of that one-time weird idea.
"I think when people started coming into Mountain Sun in the darkest, coldest, slowest month of the year and seeing that we had lines at 2:30 p.m., they realized we'd tapped into something," he said.
The list of Mountain Sun stouts that will be on tap at its properties from Boulder to Denver this month is 31 recipes long. Thirty-six beers from other breweries - including out-of-state craft brewers like Modern Times Brewing that are being added to the list of Colorado offerings for the first time in about eight years - will supplement that haul.
Mountain Sun has standard stouts and dry Irish stouts and cream stouts. But it's also concocted a Girl Scout cookie stout, a Norwegian wheat stout and a brand new cherry chile stout. There are five imperial stouts and three barrel-aged stouts waiting too, including the bourbon-barrel-aged Chocolate Thunder Imperial Milk Stout that was one of the standouts of the Great American Beer Festival.
Nearly as exciting, though, is the list of guest stouts that will be on tap.There are multiple s'mores stouts, a maple donut Russian imperial stout and a Turkish coffee stout. TRVE has three stouts that will be pouring at Mountain Sun.
Chris Bell, co-owner of Call to Arms Brewing, admitted that he rarely makes stouts. But, wanting to be a part of Stout Month madness, the Denver brewery this year created Body By Beer Milk Stout, Buzzy Body Coffee Milk Stout (which is a phenomenal blend of sweet smoothness with a kick of highly flavored roast) and Dust in the Wind Dry Irish Stout. The latter will be on at Mountain Sun.
Even though Mountain Sun will host the largest Stout Month celebration, other breweries will host their own celebrations of the style too. Resolute Brewing in Centennial, for example, will roll out six beers across the course of the month, including a chocolate orange stout and a rum raisin imperial stout. Black Sky Brewery will have a few of its own, including a blackberry stout and a chocolate mint pistachio stout.
The point is this: Stout Month began almost as a lark. And now it's an obsession. And we are the ones who get to benefit from Paul Nashak's rather brilliant idea.
Back in 1994, when American breweries numbered only in the low hundreds, Paul Nashak had an idea that he thought might bring a few more people into his then-five-month-old Mountain Sun Pub during a slow time. He would load up his taps with stouts in February, call it Stout Month and maybe give folks a little extra reason to stop by.Stout Month is no longer an idea. It's a full-blown movement that extends beyond the walls of Nashak's current five pubs and into breweries across Colorado that are setting aside more space in February for dark beers of their own creation. Many of those breweries are sending beers to be put on at Mountain Sun pubs. A few are even making beers that will be available only at Mountain Sun's locations this month.
Nashak, managing partner of the brewery, now gives talks on Stout Month. He lines up a wider variety of beers than he once imagined possible. He goes into the pub some days with a certain beer on tap and leaves only when that tap is on its third different creation of the day.
And he loves that everyone wants a piece of that one-time weird idea.
"I think when people started coming into Mountain Sun in the darkest, coldest, slowest month of the year and seeing that we had lines at 2:30 p.m., they realized we'd tapped into something," he said.
The list of Mountain Sun stouts that will be on tap at its properties from Boulder to Denver this month is 31 recipes long. Thirty-six beers from other breweries - including out-of-state craft brewers like Modern Times Brewing that are being added to the list of Colorado offerings for the first time in about eight years - will supplement that haul.
Mountain Sun has standard stouts and dry Irish stouts and cream stouts. But it's also concocted a Girl Scout cookie stout, a Norwegian wheat stout and a brand new cherry chile stout. There are five imperial stouts and three barrel-aged stouts waiting too, including the bourbon-barrel-aged Chocolate Thunder Imperial Milk Stout that was one of the standouts of the Great American Beer Festival.
Nearly as exciting, though, is the list of guest stouts that will be on tap.There are multiple s'mores stouts, a maple donut Russian imperial stout and a Turkish coffee stout. TRVE has three stouts that will be pouring at Mountain Sun.
Chris Bell, co-owner of Call to Arms Brewing, admitted that he rarely makes stouts. But, wanting to be a part of Stout Month madness, the Denver brewery this year created Body By Beer Milk Stout, Buzzy Body Coffee Milk Stout (which is a phenomenal blend of sweet smoothness with a kick of highly flavored roast) and Dust in the Wind Dry Irish Stout. The latter will be on at Mountain Sun.
Even though Mountain Sun will host the largest Stout Month celebration, other breweries will host their own celebrations of the style too. Resolute Brewing in Centennial, for example, will roll out six beers across the course of the month, including a chocolate orange stout and a rum raisin imperial stout. Black Sky Brewery will have a few of its own, including a blackberry stout and a chocolate mint pistachio stout.The point is this: Stout Month began almost as a lark. And now it's an obsession. And we are the ones who get to benefit from Paul Nashak's rather brilliant idea.
Labels: Black Sky Brewery, Call to Arms Brewing, imperial stouts, Modern Times, Mountain Sun, Resolute Brewing, stouts, TRVE
Thursday, January 29, 2015
A Tale of Two Heavy Metal Breweries
Ever since Black Sky Brewery opened during the 2013 Great American Beer Festival, it's been the living personification of how mature Denver's craft brewing scene is — mature enough to support two heavy-metal-themed breweries.
But as much as Denver might have two darkly-adorned, guitar-deifying beer makers — TRVE Brewing opened on Broadway in 2011 — have you ever spent time comparing and contrasting their beers and atmospheres? Just for fun, I decided to do that recently. And I discovered that while they may fit together into a very small niche, there are actually few similarities between the suds purveyors.
It doesn't take being inside TRVE long, for example, to feel like you are in a very different place than other breweries. The interior is black, the art is foreboding and the loud-but-not-so-loud-you-can't-talk-over-it music sounds like it's played by someone in real pain (at least that's how it sounds to a bluegrass listener like me). Pentagram-emblazoned goats and multiple mammal skulls adorn the bar, and there is not a kitchen in sight.
Black Sky is painted black as well, and larger wall art (pictured below) resembles proposed album covers for metal bands. But the music is turned down, there are TVs in the corners and there's a full menu of pizzas and calzones. Recently, the Beer Geekette and I took our five-month-old son there for dinner, and we didn't feel out of place.
Even more glaringly different than the decor, however, is the contrasting styles of brewing between Black Sky's Harry Smith and TRVE's Nick Nunns.
For all its metal atmosphere, Black Sky serves up lighter-bodied, often surprisingly lively beers. Its signature beer now is its Petal to the Metal, a 4.9% ABV rose and hibiscus ale with an appropriately flowery mouthfeel that seems to be the source of a late-breaking bitterness in an otherwise malty (16 IBU) effort. Usually you can also find on tap such offerings as a quite-sweet pomegranate wheat, pale ales with toned-down hoppy presences and even a light American ale with a citrus hop character. Guest taps are omnipresent as well.
TRVE, however, presents beer that is as challenging to the taste buds as its music is to the ear (though in a much more pleasant way). In recent years, Nunns has ramped up his barrel-aging and sour experiments, producing taste-bud busters like its eye-openingly tart Manannan sour brown ale and its dangerously drinkable Liquid Funeral Russian imperial stout that show both a great deal of complexity and strength. And just when you think you know TRVE, he'll pour you a Cursed — a sour pale ale dry-hopped with Citra and Amarillo that is neither too hoppy nor too tart but is a shockingly refreshing addition to his portfolio.
So, black metal may be black metal (though, clearly, I won't pretend to explain the musical genre). But one black-metal brewery is certainly not equivalent to the other. Black Sky is the place to go to walk just slightly on the wild side, try some accessible beers and throw down some good food. TRVE, meanwhile, is the place that tempts your beer-tasting inhibitions, immerses you fully in its culture and leaves you just a little more rattled by both its beer and scene when you leave.
Whatever your poison, though, both are worth a trip.
Ever since Black Sky Brewery opened during the 2013 Great American Beer Festival, it's been the living personification of how mature Denver's craft brewing scene is — mature enough to support two heavy-metal-themed breweries.
But as much as Denver might have two darkly-adorned, guitar-deifying beer makers — TRVE Brewing opened on Broadway in 2011 — have you ever spent time comparing and contrasting their beers and atmospheres? Just for fun, I decided to do that recently. And I discovered that while they may fit together into a very small niche, there are actually few similarities between the suds purveyors.
It doesn't take being inside TRVE long, for example, to feel like you are in a very different place than other breweries. The interior is black, the art is foreboding and the loud-but-not-so-loud-you-can't-talk-over-it music sounds like it's played by someone in real pain (at least that's how it sounds to a bluegrass listener like me). Pentagram-emblazoned goats and multiple mammal skulls adorn the bar, and there is not a kitchen in sight.
Black Sky is painted black as well, and larger wall art (pictured below) resembles proposed album covers for metal bands. But the music is turned down, there are TVs in the corners and there's a full menu of pizzas and calzones. Recently, the Beer Geekette and I took our five-month-old son there for dinner, and we didn't feel out of place.
Even more glaringly different than the decor, however, is the contrasting styles of brewing between Black Sky's Harry Smith and TRVE's Nick Nunns.
For all its metal atmosphere, Black Sky serves up lighter-bodied, often surprisingly lively beers. Its signature beer now is its Petal to the Metal, a 4.9% ABV rose and hibiscus ale with an appropriately flowery mouthfeel that seems to be the source of a late-breaking bitterness in an otherwise malty (16 IBU) effort. Usually you can also find on tap such offerings as a quite-sweet pomegranate wheat, pale ales with toned-down hoppy presences and even a light American ale with a citrus hop character. Guest taps are omnipresent as well.
TRVE, however, presents beer that is as challenging to the taste buds as its music is to the ear (though in a much more pleasant way). In recent years, Nunns has ramped up his barrel-aging and sour experiments, producing taste-bud busters like its eye-openingly tart Manannan sour brown ale and its dangerously drinkable Liquid Funeral Russian imperial stout that show both a great deal of complexity and strength. And just when you think you know TRVE, he'll pour you a Cursed — a sour pale ale dry-hopped with Citra and Amarillo that is neither too hoppy nor too tart but is a shockingly refreshing addition to his portfolio.
So, black metal may be black metal (though, clearly, I won't pretend to explain the musical genre). But one black-metal brewery is certainly not equivalent to the other. Black Sky is the place to go to walk just slightly on the wild side, try some accessible beers and throw down some good food. TRVE, meanwhile, is the place that tempts your beer-tasting inhibitions, immerses you fully in its culture and leaves you just a little more rattled by both its beer and scene when you leave.
Whatever your poison, though, both are worth a trip.
Labels: Black Sky Brewery, New Colorado breweries, TRVE
