Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Late Summer 2019: The Great, the Good and the Near Misses
Before summer fades - it is only five days gone, after all - there are a number of Colorado beers that are worth contemplating and that, in many cases, remain available at breweries, restaurants or liquor stores. Some were excellent, some were wonderfully pleasant and some were so close to being notable that you wanted to root for them to be better than they were.
Here, then, is a rundown of the beers of late summer that are still making an impression.
The Excellent
* Ratio King of Carrot Flowers
This was not the first year that Denver's seldom-miss Ratio Beerworks cooked up its seasonal carrot elderflower saison, but something just felt fresher and more vibrant this year. The beer popped with a citrus-y, almost juicy feel. The bitterness from the elderflower balanced it perfectly. And the orange-juice-hued doppelganger in your hands just felt like an experiment gone very, very right.
* Spangalang Cherry Bourbon Barrel Aged Nightwalker
No 10% ABV imperial stout has a right to be this drinkable. But Denver's most underrated brewery managed to concoct a version of its sturdy-bodied dark-as-night treat with 2-1/2 pounds per gallon of organic Colorado sweet cherries that didn't give it an overt cherry taste so much as it smoothed out the bold body and made this tough guy of beers seem almost desert-like, in a still-beer way.
* Denver Beer Peanut Butter Graham Cracker Porter
Peanut butter beers work when a brewery goes big and blasts you with flavor. Here, there was both a significant taste of thick peanut and the big, sweet base flavor of this award-winning porter - tastes that both converged harmoniously and stood out in their own right in the same glass.
The Pleasant
* Social Fare Griffin Wing
Crazy Mountain Brewing made the house beer for Social Fare, the restaurant inside the JW Marriott Denver Cherry Creek, and it made it very well. A pale ale with serious grapefruit overtures, this is a great hanging-on-the-patio-while-poking-at-your-charcuterie-board beer (see photo at top of blog) - or just a fine beer that goes down easily with an extra thrust of citrus to liven it.
* Edge Pale Ale
The summer's other notable collaboration between a Denver brewery and a hotel eatery, this pale ale from Tivoli and Edge Bar and Restaurant in the Four Seasons starts subtly but picks up in bitterness as it warms. There's really no outstanding taste here, but it flows so easily that you could be two beers in before you realize how you've enjoyed it.
The Near Misses
* Old 121 Brewhouse Rum-Barrel-Aged Oktoberfest
If you've ever wondered how marzen ages during months inside a rum barrel, the good news is the barrel cuts that medicinal edge that is too common to the style. But this experiment from Lakewood's newest brewery might have mellowed the body just a little too much to where neither the barrel nor the booze nor the malt jumped out. Still, it was good to sip while contemplating around a campfire.
* Left Hand White Russian Nitro
The Longmont brewery's latest spin on its flagship Nitro Milk Stout line was big - an 8.9% ABV concoction made with lactose, coffee and vanilla that even gave off hints of some buried cherry flavor and exuded the feel of a classic cocktail in beer form. But the melange of flavors proved overpowering, and the sweetness buried the coffee. It was a miss, but it was a bold miss.
Here, then, is a rundown of the beers of late summer that are still making an impression.
The Excellent
This was not the first year that Denver's seldom-miss Ratio Beerworks cooked up its seasonal carrot elderflower saison, but something just felt fresher and more vibrant this year. The beer popped with a citrus-y, almost juicy feel. The bitterness from the elderflower balanced it perfectly. And the orange-juice-hued doppelganger in your hands just felt like an experiment gone very, very right.
No 10% ABV imperial stout has a right to be this drinkable. But Denver's most underrated brewery managed to concoct a version of its sturdy-bodied dark-as-night treat with 2-1/2 pounds per gallon of organic Colorado sweet cherries that didn't give it an overt cherry taste so much as it smoothed out the bold body and made this tough guy of beers seem almost desert-like, in a still-beer way.
Peanut butter beers work when a brewery goes big and blasts you with flavor. Here, there was both a significant taste of thick peanut and the big, sweet base flavor of this award-winning porter - tastes that both converged harmoniously and stood out in their own right in the same glass.
The Pleasant
* Social Fare Griffin Wing
Crazy Mountain Brewing made the house beer for Social Fare, the restaurant inside the JW Marriott Denver Cherry Creek, and it made it very well. A pale ale with serious grapefruit overtures, this is a great hanging-on-the-patio-while-poking-at-your-charcuterie-board beer (see photo at top of blog) - or just a fine beer that goes down easily with an extra thrust of citrus to liven it.
The summer's other notable collaboration between a Denver brewery and a hotel eatery, this pale ale from Tivoli and Edge Bar and Restaurant in the Four Seasons starts subtly but picks up in bitterness as it warms. There's really no outstanding taste here, but it flows so easily that you could be two beers in before you realize how you've enjoyed it.
The Near Misses
If you've ever wondered how marzen ages during months inside a rum barrel, the good news is the barrel cuts that medicinal edge that is too common to the style. But this experiment from Lakewood's newest brewery might have mellowed the body just a little too much to where neither the barrel nor the booze nor the malt jumped out. Still, it was good to sip while contemplating around a campfire.
The Longmont brewery's latest spin on its flagship Nitro Milk Stout line was big - an 8.9% ABV concoction made with lactose, coffee and vanilla that even gave off hints of some buried cherry flavor and exuded the feel of a classic cocktail in beer form. But the melange of flavors proved overpowering, and the sweetness buried the coffee. It was a miss, but it was a bold miss.
Labels: Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Denver Beer Co, hotel restaurant beers, Left Hand Brewing, Old 121 Brewhouse, Ratio Beerworks, Spangalang Brewery, Summer beers, Tivoli Brewing
Friday, March 09, 2018
It's a Coffee Beer World
In the chicken-or-egg scenario, the answer is clear: Craft breweries began to grow exponentially before craft coffee roasters did. But now that the local business segments are on similar trajectories, there may not be a better partnership in the alcohol industry.
What's more, coffee beers have become one of the most studied and talked-about trends among the many booming styles in craft beerdom. From a panel discussion at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival to Saturday's upcoming Cool Beans Beer & Coffee Festival at Ratio Beerworks in Denver, the offerings are being pored over as much as they are being poured — and beer drinkers are the beneficiaries.
Once a pairing that seemed only to be made straight up with stouts and porters, coffee is appearing now in everything from lighter ales to sours. And brewers are adding lactose, dextrose and spices to make your coffee beer feel like it too is served with sugar and cream, or with the appropriate ingredients to label it Mexican Coffee.
The idea of adding coffee to beer is not a new one, noted John Holl, editor of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine at the panel he led at Big Beers in Breckenridge. But the way it's being used now make shock the sensibilities of those brewers who first experimented it with it in the early days of what then was called the microbrewing movement.
One needs look only at Carton Brewing of New Jersey, where owner Augie Carton makes offerings of 12 percent and higher meant to simulate the common ways locals take their java — "regular coffee" with cream and two sugars and Italian-style with a dash of amaretto. The resulting beers — Regular Coffee Imperial Cream Ale and Caffe Caretto — use lactose, dextrose, anise and licorice to mimic those tastes, and they taste more like strong Belgian ales than a classic porter with roast in it.
More locally, Epic Brewing, long known for the coffee it blends perfectly into its Big Bad Baptist barrel-aged imperial stout with cocoa nibs, has diversified its offerings with its Son of a Baptist and its Coffee Cream Ale, not to mention offshoots like its ridiculous Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist. And while the brewery's earned its reputation by going for the extreme, there may be no beer in Colorado in which the coffee owns the flavor quite so much as the deceptively smooth and drinkable Son of a Baptist imperial stout.
Oskar Blues also has brought alcoholic life to the party with is Java Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy, which uses the barreling and the coffee to mellow the beer in a slight but necessary way and give it a sweet, surprisingly easy body for a 12.9% ABV beer.
And then there are the wide range of beers that are adding coffee to their spicy Mexican stouts, creating an even more complex version of a beer that tastes already like a distinctly foreign drink. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout is a prime example of this.
Not everything blends seamlessly with coffee, to be sure. Jordan Schupbach, Epic director of brewing operations, noted during the Big Beers panel (pictured above) that he tried to brew a coffee beer with a lager yeast and it didn't turn out. Left Hand brewhouse manager added that he used a light-roasted coffee with a more light-bodied amber ale and "it just turned out to be not a good beer."
And brewers continue to push the taste barriers still, finding offerings that pair with coffee in newer and more intriguing ways.
Ratio's festival, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, will feature a coffee session IPA, a coffee chocolate rye scotch ale and a whiskey-barrel-aged Irish coffee American strong ale. The event, which aims to show off how many ways coffee can blend with beers to create new tastes, is as much education as it is imbibing.
Sure, the now-old-fashioned trick of blending dark coffee taste with a beer that also is as dark as night still works too. One need only try the Spaghetti Western Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout, a collaboration between Prairie Artisan Ales and Italian beer maker Brewfist, to sense that.
But coffee beers are growing and diversifying, just as the coffee-roasting industry is. And that's a dark area worthy of having light shone onto it.
In the chicken-or-egg scenario, the answer is clear: Craft breweries began to grow exponentially before craft coffee roasters did. But now that the local business segments are on similar trajectories, there may not be a better partnership in the alcohol industry.
What's more, coffee beers have become one of the most studied and talked-about trends among the many booming styles in craft beerdom. From a panel discussion at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival to Saturday's upcoming Cool Beans Beer & Coffee Festival at Ratio Beerworks in Denver, the offerings are being pored over as much as they are being poured — and beer drinkers are the beneficiaries.
Once a pairing that seemed only to be made straight up with stouts and porters, coffee is appearing now in everything from lighter ales to sours. And brewers are adding lactose, dextrose and spices to make your coffee beer feel like it too is served with sugar and cream, or with the appropriate ingredients to label it Mexican Coffee.
The idea of adding coffee to beer is not a new one, noted John Holl, editor of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine at the panel he led at Big Beers in Breckenridge. But the way it's being used now make shock the sensibilities of those brewers who first experimented it with it in the early days of what then was called the microbrewing movement.
More locally, Epic Brewing, long known for the coffee it blends perfectly into its Big Bad Baptist barrel-aged imperial stout with cocoa nibs, has diversified its offerings with its Son of a Baptist and its Coffee Cream Ale, not to mention offshoots like its ridiculous Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist. And while the brewery's earned its reputation by going for the extreme, there may be no beer in Colorado in which the coffee owns the flavor quite so much as the deceptively smooth and drinkable Son of a Baptist imperial stout.
Oskar Blues also has brought alcoholic life to the party with is Java Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy, which uses the barreling and the coffee to mellow the beer in a slight but necessary way and give it a sweet, surprisingly easy body for a 12.9% ABV beer.
And then there are the wide range of beers that are adding coffee to their spicy Mexican stouts, creating an even more complex version of a beer that tastes already like a distinctly foreign drink. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout is a prime example of this.
Not everything blends seamlessly with coffee, to be sure. Jordan Schupbach, Epic director of brewing operations, noted during the Big Beers panel (pictured above) that he tried to brew a coffee beer with a lager yeast and it didn't turn out. Left Hand brewhouse manager added that he used a light-roasted coffee with a more light-bodied amber ale and "it just turned out to be not a good beer."
And brewers continue to push the taste barriers still, finding offerings that pair with coffee in newer and more intriguing ways.Ratio's festival, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, will feature a coffee session IPA, a coffee chocolate rye scotch ale and a whiskey-barrel-aged Irish coffee American strong ale. The event, which aims to show off how many ways coffee can blend with beers to create new tastes, is as much education as it is imbibing.
Sure, the now-old-fashioned trick of blending dark coffee taste with a beer that also is as dark as night still works too. One need only try the Spaghetti Western Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout, a collaboration between Prairie Artisan Ales and Italian beer maker Brewfist, to sense that.
But coffee beers are growing and diversifying, just as the coffee-roasting industry is. And that's a dark area worthy of having light shone onto it.
Labels: Big Beers, Brewfist, Carton Brewing, Coffee beer, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Epic Brewing, John Holl, Left Hand Brewing, Oskar Blues, Prairie Artisan Ales, Ratio Beerworks
Tuesday, January 09, 2018
5 Things I Learned at Big Beers Fest 2018
Tiramisu, French toast, crickets: These were the flavors one can't forget from the 2018 Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival.
The collection of roundly amazing beers — I poured just one into a dump bucket during the four-hour tasting — was again a master study on barrel aging, hearty hopping and using bugs to bring the right level of tartness to beer. But this year, more so than in past years, it also felt like a grand experiment on the adjuncts that can push beers beyond their normal limit. And what a wonderful palate-wrecking experience it became.
There were desert beers, including a New England-style IPA made with Betty Crocker cake sprinkles (Thank you, Outer Range Brewing, for keeping the cake flavor light). There were sours that relied on the presence of multiple fruits to create new flavors. And by the time you got the gumption up to try Epic Brewing's Chapulin Gose, you literally found yourself saying: "I like the beer, but I'm not picking up the flavor of the crickets or the agave worm salt in here." And, yes, you were bummed.
So what were the biggest takeaways of the festival? Here's a few:
1) The bolder the range of flavors in big beers, the more they stood out.
Certainly, there were the big and dangerous classic bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stouts there. Loveland Aleworks had a 2015 version that was incredibly smooth. River North Brewery offered up a whiskey-barrel-aged English-style old ale that was so warming it set your insides ablaze.
But the real head-turners were gems like Cellar West Artisan Ales' Farmers Breakfast, a farmhouse-style imperial breakfast stout that was re-fermented in bourbon barrels with maple syrup and offered a fascinating melange of flavors that somehow became French toast in a glass. Or there was Epic's Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist, which not only featured imperial stout aged in whiskey barrels but had barrel-aged coconut that made this spring to a new vibrancy and overshadow its high ABV.
2) Spices are on the rise as adjuncts, thankfully.
You saw this trend where the beer advertised it blatantly. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout, for example, was rendered unforgettable by the fact that the Denver brewery used Mexican chocolate to make what could have been a heavy beer burst with flavor.
But the trend appeared even where you were least expecting it, and it was pleasing. Verboten's Tiramisu Little Nonsense had a surprising shock of Saigon cinnamon that left you with hope that chefs can make deserts like this too. And Intrepid Sojourner Beer Project's Barrel-Aged Imperial Turkish Coffee Stout added even more Middle Eastern spicing than its regular-strength version - and took your palate to a far-off place.
3) It's time to elevate Paradox Beer Company to its place among Colorado's best.
If there was a single beer of the festival, it was this Teller County brewery's Divide Ethos, a spontaneously fermented wild ale that felt like a kicked-up saison, with the bugs pinching your tongue with just a bit of sour and a whole lot of wild. The fact that it was the brewery's first coolship beer speaks even more to its ability to create new flavors.
Paradox was a big winner last year as well. It doesn't get as much attention as some of Colorado's other great wild-yeast-ale makers, partly because of its out-of-the-way location west of Colorado Springs. But it sure should.
4) It's the fruit and unusual add-ins, as much as the bugs, that are propelling stand-out sours.
Maybe Modern Times pushed the sour envelope a little too much with its One Million Tomorrows, but by mixing a ton of blueberries and raspberries into its wine-barrel-aged saison, it created such a complex flavor that you were willing to forgive the brewery.
No forgiveness at all was needed for Three Barrel's Hermano X, a lambic made with coriander, orange peel and three types of pepper that was tart enough to wake up your taste buds and your mind. And if Caution Brewing's Mazu Sour Belgian Golden — made with orange peel, coriander and cardamom and aged in red-wine barrels — wasn't the best sour on the floor, it may have been the most unique.
5) More significantly aged beers are needed.
Two-and-three-year-old beers were everywhere. But the joy of sipping Stone Brewing's 2007 Old Guardian Barleywine and enjoying its sweetly aged body even as the hops diminished was a short-lived pleasure because it stood so alone among the largely newer beers on the floor (save for Sam Adams' 24-year-old Triple Bock).
There wasn't much one could have left wanting from the festival. But 10-year-or-older beers would have been fun to try more frequently.
Tiramisu, French toast, crickets: These were the flavors one can't forget from the 2018 Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival.
The collection of roundly amazing beers — I poured just one into a dump bucket during the four-hour tasting — was again a master study on barrel aging, hearty hopping and using bugs to bring the right level of tartness to beer. But this year, more so than in past years, it also felt like a grand experiment on the adjuncts that can push beers beyond their normal limit. And what a wonderful palate-wrecking experience it became.
There were desert beers, including a New England-style IPA made with Betty Crocker cake sprinkles (Thank you, Outer Range Brewing, for keeping the cake flavor light). There were sours that relied on the presence of multiple fruits to create new flavors. And by the time you got the gumption up to try Epic Brewing's Chapulin Gose, you literally found yourself saying: "I like the beer, but I'm not picking up the flavor of the crickets or the agave worm salt in here." And, yes, you were bummed.
So what were the biggest takeaways of the festival? Here's a few:
1) The bolder the range of flavors in big beers, the more they stood out.
Certainly, there were the big and dangerous classic bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stouts there. Loveland Aleworks had a 2015 version that was incredibly smooth. River North Brewery offered up a whiskey-barrel-aged English-style old ale that was so warming it set your insides ablaze.
But the real head-turners were gems like Cellar West Artisan Ales' Farmers Breakfast, a farmhouse-style imperial breakfast stout that was re-fermented in bourbon barrels with maple syrup and offered a fascinating melange of flavors that somehow became French toast in a glass. Or there was Epic's Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist, which not only featured imperial stout aged in whiskey barrels but had barrel-aged coconut that made this spring to a new vibrancy and overshadow its high ABV.
2) Spices are on the rise as adjuncts, thankfully.
You saw this trend where the beer advertised it blatantly. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout, for example, was rendered unforgettable by the fact that the Denver brewery used Mexican chocolate to make what could have been a heavy beer burst with flavor.
But the trend appeared even where you were least expecting it, and it was pleasing. Verboten's Tiramisu Little Nonsense had a surprising shock of Saigon cinnamon that left you with hope that chefs can make deserts like this too. And Intrepid Sojourner Beer Project's Barrel-Aged Imperial Turkish Coffee Stout added even more Middle Eastern spicing than its regular-strength version - and took your palate to a far-off place.
If there was a single beer of the festival, it was this Teller County brewery's Divide Ethos, a spontaneously fermented wild ale that felt like a kicked-up saison, with the bugs pinching your tongue with just a bit of sour and a whole lot of wild. The fact that it was the brewery's first coolship beer speaks even more to its ability to create new flavors.
Paradox was a big winner last year as well. It doesn't get as much attention as some of Colorado's other great wild-yeast-ale makers, partly because of its out-of-the-way location west of Colorado Springs. But it sure should.
4) It's the fruit and unusual add-ins, as much as the bugs, that are propelling stand-out sours.
Maybe Modern Times pushed the sour envelope a little too much with its One Million Tomorrows, but by mixing a ton of blueberries and raspberries into its wine-barrel-aged saison, it created such a complex flavor that you were willing to forgive the brewery.
No forgiveness at all was needed for Three Barrel's Hermano X, a lambic made with coriander, orange peel and three types of pepper that was tart enough to wake up your taste buds and your mind. And if Caution Brewing's Mazu Sour Belgian Golden — made with orange peel, coriander and cardamom and aged in red-wine barrels — wasn't the best sour on the floor, it may have been the most unique.
5) More significantly aged beers are needed.
Two-and-three-year-old beers were everywhere. But the joy of sipping Stone Brewing's 2007 Old Guardian Barleywine and enjoying its sweetly aged body even as the hops diminished was a short-lived pleasure because it stood so alone among the largely newer beers on the floor (save for Sam Adams' 24-year-old Triple Bock).
There wasn't much one could have left wanting from the festival. But 10-year-or-older beers would have been fun to try more frequently.
Labels: Big Beers, Cellar West Artisan Ales, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Epic Brewing, Intrepid Sojourner, Loveland Aleworks, Modern Times, Paradox Brewing, Stone Brewing, Three Barrel Brewing, Verboten Brewing
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
5 Beers to Drink in the Dead of Winter
February is usually the doldrums of the craft beer year, coming after brewers have kicked the special offerings they made for Vail Big Beers but before the new-found creativity of the summer season begins to hit shelves. But not every brewery believes in taking a winter break.
New experiments and some returning late-winter seasonals that can be found on liquor-store shelves offer a peek at just what can be done with a few new hops or a few bold flavoring additives. And here then are a handful of beers you should grab before Spring comes and sweeps them away.
1) Grand Teton Double Vision Doppelbock
The first release in this Idaho brewery's 2016 Cellar Reserve series is a bold, slightly chocolaty offering reminiscent of a lighter-bodied porter. This is a truly excellent medium-bodied dark beer, laced with a tinge of alcohol taste to remind you how beefy a good German-style beer can be.
2) Ska Bump 'n Grind Coffee Cream Stout
Dark as night and balanced without being a coffee bomb, the cream here doesn't add sweetness as much as it provides a softness to this beer (pictured above). Arguably the most subtle of the Durango brewery's flavored stout series, this is a coffee beer for people who don't want the assaulting-bitterness characteristic of the coffee.
3) Odell Runoff Red IPA
Dry-hopped with a complex malt backbone, this hybrid red/IPA is an appropriate beer for the shoulder season. The maltiness gives the vibrant hops a slightly sweet character to go with the full body that is a constant characteristic of Odell offerings.
4) Crazy Mountain Emotional Rescue Double India Pale Ale
One of Denver's newest breweries (now operating in the old Breckenridge Brewery space on Kalamath Street) has been experimenting with a double IPA recipe for years before recently launching this in four-packs. The research time clearly was worth it, producing a resiny, bitter beer that mellows into a malt-balanced mouthful as it warms.
5) Strange Big Malty Winter Brew
One of the least-hopped beauties of early 2016, this warming, amber-colored malt bomb that's available in bombers hits all the right notes. The earthy malt brings its flavor without getting medicinal, and the beer turns slightly cocoa in your mouth as it warms.
February is usually the doldrums of the craft beer year, coming after brewers have kicked the special offerings they made for Vail Big Beers but before the new-found creativity of the summer season begins to hit shelves. But not every brewery believes in taking a winter break.
New experiments and some returning late-winter seasonals that can be found on liquor-store shelves offer a peek at just what can be done with a few new hops or a few bold flavoring additives. And here then are a handful of beers you should grab before Spring comes and sweeps them away.
1) Grand Teton Double Vision DoppelbockThe first release in this Idaho brewery's 2016 Cellar Reserve series is a bold, slightly chocolaty offering reminiscent of a lighter-bodied porter. This is a truly excellent medium-bodied dark beer, laced with a tinge of alcohol taste to remind you how beefy a good German-style beer can be.
2) Ska Bump 'n Grind Coffee Cream Stout
Dark as night and balanced without being a coffee bomb, the cream here doesn't add sweetness as much as it provides a softness to this beer (pictured above). Arguably the most subtle of the Durango brewery's flavored stout series, this is a coffee beer for people who don't want the assaulting-bitterness characteristic of the coffee.
3) Odell Runoff Red IPA
Dry-hopped with a complex malt backbone, this hybrid red/IPA is an appropriate beer for the shoulder season. The maltiness gives the vibrant hops a slightly sweet character to go with the full body that is a constant characteristic of Odell offerings.
4) Crazy Mountain Emotional Rescue Double India Pale Ale
One of Denver's newest breweries (now operating in the old Breckenridge Brewery space on Kalamath Street) has been experimenting with a double IPA recipe for years before recently launching this in four-packs. The research time clearly was worth it, producing a resiny, bitter beer that mellows into a malt-balanced mouthful as it warms.5) Strange Big Malty Winter Brew
One of the least-hopped beauties of early 2016, this warming, amber-colored malt bomb that's available in bombers hits all the right notes. The earthy malt brings its flavor without getting medicinal, and the beer turns slightly cocoa in your mouth as it warms.
Labels: Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Grand Teton Brewing, Odell Brewing, Ska Brewing, stouts, Strange Craft Beer, Winter seasonals
Friday, January 08, 2016
5 Tips for Enjoying Vail Big Beers
For the first time in 10 years, I won't be attending the Vail Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival this year. The impending birth of our daughter had to trump plans to indulge in beautiful, high-alcohol beer all weekend — though don't think I didn't have to pause at least a little bit before making the decision to stay home.
For those of you lucky bastards who will be headed up Interstate 70 for the festivities, however, a world of tasting and pairing opportunities awaits you over the next two days. And if I might be so bold as to offer a few suggestions, here are the tips from a veteran on how to get the most out of the experience.
1) Start Saturday at the experimental tasting seminar.
One of the best things about the festival is that it allows you to start your day Saturday by tasting beer at 9:30 a.m. without anyone casting aspersions on your character. These seminars — which have ranged from barrel-aged beers to saisons and which this year focuses on Koelschips — feature the best brewers from Colorado and the country expounding on daring ways to make their beer. And, yes, you get to be trying a sour ale at the same time that most people are pouring milk on their Fruit Loops. But it feels less like an early-morning tailgate and far more more like a fine-dining experience.
2) Ask what they made for the show.
Few Colorado beer festivals inspire brewers to create products specifically for that show. But breweries from Great Divide to Grimm Brothers have been known to bust out barrel-aging experiments just to try them out on the crowd. Hell, Crazy Mountain Brewery debuted at the 2010 festival just to get reaction to its first beers. If something doesn't look familiar at a booth, ask about it and try it; it just may be the best thing you find there.
3) One (pseudo)-secret brewery is a must-stop.
Brewers from Sam Calagione to Adam Avery will be the people actually pouring the beer for you, and that is a wonderful perk to Big Beers. You can ask them about their experiments and try the latest thing in their arsenals, and the national places you love should be on your hit list. (See my wife, Denise, above, loving her Rumpkin in 2015.) But the smaller brewers in attendance are there for a reason, and there are some diamonds among them.
It was about three or four years ago at this festival that Three Barrel Brewing of Del Norte stopped being the best-kept secret in Colorado brewing and just became one of the up-and-coming sour makers in the state. Owner John Bricker typically brings up between five and 10 experiments that may involve chili, chocolate or other ingredients not often found in the genre. And chances are that at least one of them will be among the most talked-about offerings of the event.
4) Stop afterward at the Fireside Bar.
The bar at the Vail Cascade, home resort of the event, is one of the great craft-brewing outposts off of the Front Range. Featuring a beer program launched by festival co-founder Laura Lodge (pictured above), it's a place that has a cellar list, taps from mountain craft breweries and a good range of options. Plus, this is where the brewers themselves hang out when not serving up their creations, so it's a good chance to talk beer with the biggest experts in the industry.
5) Attend a dinner.
Beer dinners abound, both those arranged by the festival and more that are just popping up at locations around Vail. If there ever was a festival meant to pair beer and food, it's one that showcases the highest-ABV creations that are not 12-ounce bar beers so much as they are perfect to sample in smaller portions with, say, wagyu beef sushi. The dinners are incredibly chill events and, as this picture from 2015 demonstrates, even infants can sneak in if you're polite to the organizer. But this is a chance to experience and enjoy beer in a new way.
For the first time in 10 years, I won't be attending the Vail Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival this year. The impending birth of our daughter had to trump plans to indulge in beautiful, high-alcohol beer all weekend — though don't think I didn't have to pause at least a little bit before making the decision to stay home.
For those of you lucky bastards who will be headed up Interstate 70 for the festivities, however, a world of tasting and pairing opportunities awaits you over the next two days. And if I might be so bold as to offer a few suggestions, here are the tips from a veteran on how to get the most out of the experience.
1) Start Saturday at the experimental tasting seminar.
One of the best things about the festival is that it allows you to start your day Saturday by tasting beer at 9:30 a.m. without anyone casting aspersions on your character. These seminars — which have ranged from barrel-aged beers to saisons and which this year focuses on Koelschips — feature the best brewers from Colorado and the country expounding on daring ways to make their beer. And, yes, you get to be trying a sour ale at the same time that most people are pouring milk on their Fruit Loops. But it feels less like an early-morning tailgate and far more more like a fine-dining experience.
2) Ask what they made for the show.
Few Colorado beer festivals inspire brewers to create products specifically for that show. But breweries from Great Divide to Grimm Brothers have been known to bust out barrel-aging experiments just to try them out on the crowd. Hell, Crazy Mountain Brewery debuted at the 2010 festival just to get reaction to its first beers. If something doesn't look familiar at a booth, ask about it and try it; it just may be the best thing you find there.
3) One (pseudo)-secret brewery is a must-stop.
Brewers from Sam Calagione to Adam Avery will be the people actually pouring the beer for you, and that is a wonderful perk to Big Beers. You can ask them about their experiments and try the latest thing in their arsenals, and the national places you love should be on your hit list. (See my wife, Denise, above, loving her Rumpkin in 2015.) But the smaller brewers in attendance are there for a reason, and there are some diamonds among them.
It was about three or four years ago at this festival that Three Barrel Brewing of Del Norte stopped being the best-kept secret in Colorado brewing and just became one of the up-and-coming sour makers in the state. Owner John Bricker typically brings up between five and 10 experiments that may involve chili, chocolate or other ingredients not often found in the genre. And chances are that at least one of them will be among the most talked-about offerings of the event.
The bar at the Vail Cascade, home resort of the event, is one of the great craft-brewing outposts off of the Front Range. Featuring a beer program launched by festival co-founder Laura Lodge (pictured above), it's a place that has a cellar list, taps from mountain craft breweries and a good range of options. Plus, this is where the brewers themselves hang out when not serving up their creations, so it's a good chance to talk beer with the biggest experts in the industry.
5) Attend a dinner.
Beer dinners abound, both those arranged by the festival and more that are just popping up at locations around Vail. If there ever was a festival meant to pair beer and food, it's one that showcases the highest-ABV creations that are not 12-ounce bar beers so much as they are perfect to sample in smaller portions with, say, wagyu beef sushi. The dinners are incredibly chill events and, as this picture from 2015 demonstrates, even infants can sneak in if you're polite to the organizer. But this is a chance to experience and enjoy beer in a new way.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Beer dinners, Big Beers, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Dogfish Head, Great Divide, Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, Three Barrel Brewing, Vail Cascade
Friday, January 06, 2012
Good Cheers and Big BeersIt's the wonderful weekend of the Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival in Vail, one of the finest brewfests in Colorado each year. And while there will be more to discuss afterward - after deciding which of the multiple seminars to attend and which of the 200 or so strong beers to sample - there's at least two pieces of good news at the start.
First, from the festival website, all attendees get a $5 food ticket with their admission this year. I would say this is an added bonus all festivals should consider. Too many people - the Fearless Tasting Crew included - get too wrapped up in the beer selection and simply forget to put anything in their stomach to cushion the impact of drinking. This will provide an incentive to do that, at the least.
Second, a source - we'll just call him "Gary from Colorado Craft Beer Radio" - tells that the tasting portion of the the event will be spread out between two rooms this year. This is an even better move for the festival. No one has ever complained about the worldwide, rare selection of beers available at this gathering. But occasionally, the central tasting area has become so crowded that you have to ping-pong your way from table to table. Spreading it out will ensure everyone has a more pleasant good time, and festival organizers should be lauded for it.
If you don't have tickets yet, they are still available. And - shameless plug alert - if you're going up today but don't have plans for tonight - feel free to stop by Crazy Mountain Brewing in Edwards for a "Mountain Brew" book-signing.
Cheers.
Labels: Big Beers, Colorado Craft Beer Radio, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Mountain Brew book
Monday, July 11, 2011
Crazy ... Like a HopheadAn Episcopalian priest, a biker and a Bernese Mountain Dog walk into a bar. And then they all have a beer - all except the dog, that is. It may sound like a bad joke, but this was exactly the scene at Crazy Mountain Brewery on Sunday afternoon.
As eclectic as it may have seemed, the diverse group of beer lovers paired like a fine cheese with the selection of eight unique beers pouring from in the brewery whose tap room opened less than a year ago. And for anyone making a first visit to the location in Edwards, about 1o miles west of Vail, it was a mellow, welcoming place to explore new twists on familiar beer styles.
Brewer Kevin Selvy's story is a familiar one: He worked his way up through the brewing ranks, starting in Anchor Steam's winery, before starting out on his own. And, while longing for experimental beers, he brewed a wheat and an amber out of the shoot to introduce Crazy Mountain to the world.
But that wheat - Lava Lake Wit Beer - is a Belgian wit made with chamomile, coriander and Curacao orange peel. It's a strong, fruity, multilayered wheat that thrusts a hint of spice into your mouth in a strangely calming way.
And that amber, Crazy Mountain Amber Ale, is one of the most highly hopped of its variety, with West Coast hops. It mirrors the trend toward over-hopping red ales, but with the smoother and less malty body, it leaves a slightly less substantial but terribly enjoyable amber you could drink all night long.
Crazy Mountain's other joys include its Cara De Luna Ale, a black German pale ale that's more dunkel than double IPA but uses the hops to balance the dark malt nicely. There's the Est Rousse Belgian Amber, which presents a sweet, slightly burnt caramel taste in the same delicate way that a pale ale presents its flowers. And, for a limited time, there's the Apres Cuvee, a barrel-aged blend of barleywine, winter ale and pale ale that's like a big, sweet, oak-encrusted bomb of a hearty pale body.
You have to work to find Crazy Mountain's taproom - it's in the back of shopping center situated beside two roundabouts at the entrance to Edwards - but doing so is worth it. It's a place where you bring your own food, listen to music and kick back at pine-beetle-killed wooden picnic tables and see just who or what walks in to join your afternoon.
Labels: Crazy Mountain Brewing Company
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Crazy Mountain: Coming Soon to a Ski Town Near UsJust as the Texan skiers exit Colorado and the leaves begin to come back to the trees, it seems too that new breweries begin to peek their heads out every spring. And the first arrival of the season, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, brings with it the hope that each of the year's rookie aspirants can carry as much promise as this newcomer.
If you haven't heard yet of Crazy Mountain, that probably just means you don't hang out a lot in the Vail area. The brewery made its splash debut at the Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival in January, where it made such an impression with a Belgian golden ale that founder Kevin Selvy was able to secure the final funding he needed to open. It's currently contracting its recipes to be brewed while he puts the finishing touches on its Edwards taproom and production brewery, expected to open in June or July.
Kevin, who was nice enough to meet me last weekend at Bacco's Bar, one of eight restaurants in the Vail Valley that has his Crazy Mountain Amber Ale on tap, brings a wealth of experience to the venture, having gone to school at Colorado State University and later taken a job with Anchor in San Francisco. Although Crazy Mountain has created just two brews so far - the other being its Lava Lake Wit Beer - Kevin plans to experiment with making everything from the ubiquitous IPA to a creation using Ponderosa pine needles.
The Amber Ale is a highly appropriate apres-ski offering, a smooth and drinkable beer at 5.25 percent ABV but once that laces the red-tinged recipe with enough hops to wake up even the dehydrated taste buds on the back of the tongue. Kevin wanted to debut with an amber that was nicely balanced, he said, and ended up meeting that goal while also exceeding taste expectations of the style.
Crazy Mountain will, in time, make its way through not just the valley but all of Colorado, and it will be a substantial new offering to the state's collection of breweries. And, if 2010 unfolds like many years past, it hopefully won't be the only new brewery that debuts and gains traction.
Labels: Anchor Brewing, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company
