Beer Run Blog

The Shocking and Fascinating Beers of This Year    

Anyone who expected a return to normalcy by Colorado brewers in 2021 should be surprised and, frankly, a little pleased by what this year has produced so far.

From Czech breweries making Baltic porters to lagers that sing more than the style seems it should to an international brewery intentionally making a "bad" beer, there's been a lot to remember. And as we head into the final third of the year, with (maybe) more beer festivals offering a chance for even more exposure to creative offerings, these trends offer hope that this long last 17 months is giving way to even more creativity.

That said, here then is a few beers that are worth remembering, for a host of reasons:

Seedstock Baltic Porter

Seedstock is a Czech-style brewery that makes old-world beers, and it does that very well - so well, in fact, that it draws you to drink styles that normally might not interest you. But when it put out a baltic porter this spring that was big and bold and yet sublimely drinkable, it showed a versatility of European styles that the Denver brewery hadn't displayed before. And now, quite frankly, it's become a can't-miss brewery, one where you want to head for any new release just to see exactly what it can do with it.

New Terrain North Star Doubly Hazy

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise to fans of New Terrain's award-winning Suntrip Belgian Wit, but most people who've walked into a local liquor store and asked for a hop-bomb recommendation have rarely heard an answer that began with the name of the Golden brewery. That's why this edition in its North Star series — a hazy double IPA with Barbe Rouge and Azacca hops — was a mind-blower, deeply tropical and yet bursting with vibrant hops that brought this to life as well as any IPA made this year.

Dead Styles Come Back to Life

Locavore Beer Works of Littleton set time back 10 years with a black IPA that made you wonder why the style was so short-lived. Blending true malt roast with a cutting but not overwhelming Northwest IPA bitterness, it felt like a breath of fresh air in the IPA genre, even it was more of a blast from the past.

Cannonball Creek incorporated an ingredient that's lost favor among many brewers — rye — into a hop-heavy 5.7% ABV ale in such an expertly blended way that Ryed in Your Arms made you ask why more people can't do that. The answer, of course, is that the Golden brewery is one of Colorado's masters at taking subtle styles and jolting them to life, and in this case the rye sweetened the beer only slightly, letting the pale hops work the palate to be softened just briefly by this excellent addition.

"Dull" Styles Produce the Most Interesting Beers of the Year

Yes, brewers themselves have been drinking pilsners and lagers for years, but they've had a hard time convincing the craft-beer drinking public to put down their hazies and their stouts to pay attention to the old-world style. If any beers will do that, however, they are two limited releases from Upslope Brewing that may well be the best beers made this year.

The Boulder brewery's Mexican Style Dark Lager is delicious and lasting from the first sip, offering a deeply roasted malt with no burn to it and an underlying sweet-biscuit taste that is tempered with enough hops to give it a slight bite and a lucid finish. Then, last month Upslope may have outdone itself with a German-style pilsner that combines Old World crispness with New World crushability, ending with a bold bitterness on its backbite that seems to put a truly Colorado stamp on a European style.

New Belgium's "Bad" Beer

This spring, New Belgium released Fat Tire Torched Earth, using smoked malt, non-barley grains like millet and dandelions in place of hop extract to approximate what it believes beer will taste like in the event of continued global warming. While it seemed like a gimmick affordable only to a brewery now owned by the ninth-largest brewing company in the world (and delivered in a package with end-of-the-world gear)— and one that it said was meant to send a message to big businesses — the truth was that it actually wasn't awful for a smoked beer and was more enjoyable than some of its efforts in recent years such as the cloying, hideous Juicy Mandarina IPA it rolled out a few years back.

But as tempting as it might be after that to just write off the brewery, a simple visit to its Denver outpost reminds you how much talent it still has. Of particular note this summer was its Strawberry Guava Sour, a beer that blends two strong fruit flavors in a way that allows both to bring distinguishable characteristics and presents them in a tart but surprisingly pleasing and eye-opening fashion.

Sanitas' New Path

For much of the past eight years, Sanitas Brewing has been a bit of a nondescript brewery — one of a significant number of Boulder beer makers that produces a range of good offerings but nothing that slapped you across the face and defined the brewery for you. This year, however, it may have hit on a new path forward, defined by fresh and drinkable sour beers that you want on a hot summer day.

Raspberry Sour, which came out early this summer, was subtly delicious but unchallenging in a way that made you want to down a six-pack on a camping trip or on a porch, offering hints of tart that didn't burn the palate and could extend the genre to a wider audience. Then, this month it reintroduced Deluge, a more traditionally sour ale that had both a bold underlying palate and a feel of pixie-dust sugar that was fascinating without being overly aggressive — a niche that could be welcomed.

Rediscovering a Forgotten Classic

Lastly, I admit that I'm years late to the bandwagon — if one even exists — for Steve's Snappin' Ale, but I just never thought that a chili ale made by a hot-dog restaurant screamed of being a must-try beer. Then a friend bought one on a lark this summer, and what I discovered was a golden ale, bottled by Bull & Bush Brewery, that provides just enough base to temper the hot, hot red and green chili peppers and allow them to shine in the flavor in a way that proved quite tasty.

Don't assume this is an every-day beer; it isn't. But, even if it's a few years older than most everything else mentioned in this column, it's yet another reminder that some of the most notable beer on the market right now may look like it doesn't belong to a certain brewery or even a certain decade but lights up your taste buds when given a chance.

Labels: Bull and Bush, Cannonball Creek Brewing, Locavore Beer Works, New Belgium Brewing, New Terrain Brewing, Sanitas Brewing, Seedstock Brewing, Steve's Snappin' Dogs, Upslope Brewing

Top 10 Colorado Beers of 2013


Thinking back on the best that Colorado had to offer in 2013, I am struck most by the scrappy and transient natures of the honorees.

Just two of my favorite 10 beers of the year was made by breweries — Ska and Epic — that distribute to more than one state outside of Colorado. That's not to say that the giants of Colorado craft brew that usually dominate this list — Great Divide, Odell, Avery, etc. — did not produce great beers; they just seemed to be outshined by some of the creativity emanating from the state's little guys.

Also, my greatest beef with the beers on this list was that many came and went so quickly, available for limited times and sometimes in extremely limited quantities, that the conversation around them was too limited for them to become part of the common beer vernacular. In those cases, I can only hope their brewers realize the gems they have created and crank them up in greater volume so that more people can experience their joy in 2014.

That said, without further ado ...

10. Cinnamon Almond Ale - Colorado Plus
At a time when brewers are becoming bolder about incorporating uncommon flavors, Adam Draeger took two flavors no one associated with great beer and made them sing in one of the most unique concoctions of the year. Allowing the almond to serve as the smooth landing for the spice of the cinnamon made this intriguing and unforgettable.

9. Watermelon Kolsch - Fate Brewing
This was the beer that proved that summer beers don't have to be boring - a light but crisp kolsch with a hearty dose of watermelon that provides huge refreshment at the same time it ups the complexity of this traditional German style.

8. Penitente Hermano - Three Barrel Brewing
One of the most exciting "exports" of the year was the arrival in Denver liquor stores of this creative brewery from the San Luis Valley. Penitente Hermano, a Belgian sour ale with a coriander kick on the back, paved its entrance after being one of the most gushed-over efforts of the 2013 Vail Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines festival.

7. Sentience - Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project
The way this Denver brewery is turning out fascinating sours, you could almost throw a dart blindly at a board of its offerings and put whatever it lands on onto this list. But the Sentience stood out as the "it" beer of the Avery Strong Ale Festival this year, a tart wild quad whose whiskey-barrel aging accented its sharpness perfectly.

6. Snowed In - Copper Kettle Brewing
We're so far into the Christmas beer trend that you don't think anything can surprise you anymore. Then you have a sip of this imperial oatmeal stout aged six months in bourbon barrels with coffee and chocolate and you're not only blown away by its easy-drinking big-alcohol complexity, you have to tell yourself to hang out more at this east Denver brewery.

 5. 4.0 Grapefruit Pale Ale - Bull & Bush Brewery
The idea of hopping a pale ale or an IPA to resemble a grapefruit was a very popular one this summer. But this Denver brewery took it a step further, adding grapefruit juice to the mix and turning out a low-alcohol summer creation that was one of the unique tastes of the entire year. Can't wait for this to come back in 2014.

4. Two Tone Montanya - Ska Brewing
The most impressive Colorado sour of this year was this Belgian dubbel aged in Montanya rum barrels to take on a tart citrus character combined with a big, sweet body. This is arguably the finest beer made by the 18-year-old brewery.

3. Fan Boy - Elevation Beer
At some point, you really believe that no matter how good a new IPA can be, it won't be inherently different than what it out there already. Then you taste this oak-barrel-aged double IPA, filled with a full mouth of hops but also with oak and vanilla and introducing to this market something acutely original - and phenomenal in its flavor.

2. Devil's Riddle Ale - Grimm Brothers Brewhouse
The most unique beer I tried in 2013 was this strong ale aged nine months in Buffalo Trace barrels with Brettanomyces. It was musty, it was big, it was biting me with a strange tartness that came out of nowhere. It was complex. It was great. And it may just signify a new era for these German beer makers from Loveland.

1. Big Bad Baptist - Epic Brewing
Those outside of the Denver area were able to enjoy this monster of an imperial stout (10.5% ABV), made with cocoa nibs and with a tone of coffee. But when Epic opened its Colorado brewery in May, it was a revelation to the rest of us, a darker-than-night whirlwind that could knock you down with its alcohol but somehow was just smooth enough to allow you to drink more than you should. No beer generated more talk this year, whether in its classic form or when it was mixed with Strange Brewing's Cherry Kriek - a combination that shouldn't have worked but somehow did. Few beers were more satisfying. And that's the mark of a beer of the year.

Labels: Bull and Bush, Colorado Plus Brew Pub, Copper Kettle Brewing, Crooked Stave, Elevation Beer, Epic Brewing, Fate Brewing, Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, Ska Brewing, Three Barrel Brewing, Top Beers of Year

The Beers of Summer


Saying goodbye to summer is never easy. But after a year like this one, in which Colorado brewers added ingredients to beer that were quite unexpected - and, in almost every case, succeeded - it is especially difficult to want to turn the page.

From new fruits to vegetables to combinations of styles and additives that were a bit off track, breweries experimented and seemed almost to one up each other.

There were, for example, the grapefruit wars, in which beer makers went beyond describing their hop bombs as "having a citrus taste" and actually imbued it with a specific citrus fruit flavor. Strange Brewing made a Grapefruit IPA impressive in its combination of traditional hop flavor and acidity. But the best of the bunch - and maybe the beer of the summer - was Bull and Bush's 4.0 Grapefruit Pale Ale, which tasted remarkably similar to a fresh squeezed glass of juice with a malt balance and a tiny 4.0% ABV.

It was the summer too for watermelon. Fate's sublime Watermelon Kolsch (pictured to the left)
was full of both refreshment and watermelon pulp, adding to the joy of discovering a new style. Strange, ever the experimenter, also offered a Watermelon Hefe that brought a twist of excitement to a sometimes dull category of beer.

Trinity Brewing kept rocking its new sours but may have turned more heads with its Electrick Cucumbahh, a summer saison that used the natural sugars in the cucumber to sweeten the beer and make you see the vegetable anew.

Not content to stick just with fruits and vegetables as the new darlings of the season, Colorado Plus whipped out a Cinnamon Almond Ale that let the almond cream feel mellow the sharp cinnamon quite expertly.

Peach isn't a new beer additive, by any means. But Odell Brewing's Tree Shaker Peach IPA used the fruit in a different way. And even if the peach was only slightly perceptible, you knew you were drinking a hop bomb that had a different edge to it.

The summer became so ubiquitous with new additive experiments, in fact, that more traditional efforts almost felt half-hearted. A trip to Yak and Yeti for its summer wheat series left the Beer Geekette and I disappointed in a Strawberry Wheat that just didn't feel unique anymore.

The experimentation should continue in the raft of pumpkin and Christmas beers that are coming out now and soon will be on the horizon. But it wouldn't hurt to drop into some of the brewers mentioned above and remind them that a good idea works all year round, not just when it's hot.

Labels: Bull and Bush, Colorado Plus Brew Pub, Fate Brewing, Strange Brewing, Summer beers, Trinity Brewing, Yak and Yeti

The 12 Beers of Christmas: Day 11

Labels: Bull and Bush, Holiday beers