Beer Run Blog

One Year In, Brooklyn Brewery's Arrival to Colorado Remains Worth Celebrating

Between the rate at which out-of-state breweries enter Colorado and the rate at which new breweries open within the Centennial State, there is little reason to acknowledge a beer maker from the other 49, regardless to celebrate it. Brooklyn Brewery, however, is the exception to that corollary.

Nearly one year after the 35-year-old brewery first began to offer its wares at local bars and liquor stores, there is something that distinguishes it from the other breweries that have crept into our hotbed of a beer market, even as fantastic as some of those breweries (i.e. Bell's) are. And that something is a sense of craft-beer history that continues to waft out of each of its cans and bottles, almost like it would be far more unnatural if Brooklyn's beers were not with us than the fact that a New York-brewed offering is sitting on our shelves beside 90 different Colorado creations.

Brooklyn founder Steve Hindy (pictured above), after all, is a true pioneer of the American scene. A former Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press who discovered homebrewing through envoys that made their own libations in countries where it was illegal to buy them, he started a "microbrewery" at the time when the idea was foreign to American drinkers. He made fans not only in New York but among pilots and oil tycoons from Europe and Asia who insisted he start exporting the beer by 1988. And yet it was only 30 years later that he felt the time was right to distribute in Colorado.

"You do have quite a few breweries here. I think the craft beer movement is largely about local," Hindy told me over a couple of pints last October at Falling Rock Tap House. "But the beer industry is about brands. And brands can transcend local."

One sip of the brewery's Sorachi Ace, a saison with a slightly lemony aroma and bigger-than-it-seems wallop of alcohol in the body, will tell you that. Colorado has some great saison makers — including Funkwerks, the Fort Collins brewery  in which Brooklyn bought a minority stake in order to distribute throughout the country — but Sorachi Ace still stands out as one of the cleanest and yet most unique saisons out there.

Or there is its Bel Air Sour, a lighter-bodied Lactobacillus-tinged wild ale that gives off a pre-ripe fruit feel at first blush but settles to a level of tartness that licks the taste buds without burning them up. It's become my go-to beer to introduce to friends who are sour-curious but still not sure how much they want to try the style.

Brooklyn's entry also brought 21st Amendment Brewery into the market, as it has a similar financial relationship to that San Francisco denizen as it has to Funkwerks. And 21st Amendment has brought the state the unique Hell or High Watermelon Wheat and the excellent Brew Free or Die Blood Orange IPA, two beers that also transcend local and make you want to crave a classic.

There is, of course, the Brooklyn Lager, a finely made remnant of 1990s beer culture that reminds you of why people wanted to switch from flavorless light lagers to American takes on the style that imbued a shocking amount of flavor at that time. The beer (thanks, Dustin Hall, for the photo) still represents 50% of Brooklyn's production, and it's the one Hindy will drink all night as he explains how it just seemed the time last year to make Colorado the 30th state in which the brewery is sold.

So, come Great American Beer Festival, I will seek out the new and bold and hip and daring, because that excitement of boundary-pushing continues to define why craft beer is so fresh even after it's become a market go-to for 10 years. But I also will seek out the Brooklyn booth, despite it being embedded in Colorado at this point, because seeking the future without knowing the delicious past of this sector creates a lack of direction, long after Hindy, brewer Garrett Oliver and others pointed the industry to the place where it now sits.

Labels: 21st Amendment Brewing, Bell's Brewing, Brooklyn Brewery, Funkwerks, Great American Beer Festival, lager, Saisons, sour ale

Five Tastes of Colorado Summer for the Adventurous Beer Palate


Yes, summer is a time to sip kolsches and pilsners and Mexican lagers and appreciate just how refreshing and well-made a lighter beer can be. But that doesn't mean that skilled artisans can't concoct uniquely warmer-weather-worthy beverages that come with just as much complexity as any indulgence you'd stand in line for at the Great American Beer Festival.

With that, then, here are five beers on shelves this season - some recurring favorites, others new introductions to the Colorado craft-beer canon - that should be discovered before we need to start wearing sweatshirts again.

1) Ratio Beerworks New Wave
The Strawberry Berlinerweisse has progressed from a pleasant summer diversion to one of the best beers made in Colorado, period. It comes on with just enough of a tinge to let you know that the Denver brewery has perfected the art of sour mashing, but you are struck most by the seamless blending of big fruit and a body that draws out the berry's acidity without pounding it too much.

2) Funkwerks Raspberry Provincial
Not quite a sour, this juicy and slightly tart offering is the embodiment of a fruit beer that doesn't feel at all like a starter beer and that won't disappoint you if you are looking for a complex flavor in a simple body. The fact it's migrated from a summer seasonal to a year-round selection doesn't change the fact that it's best sipped by the pool (as the above picture of my son demonstrates).

3) Call to Arms Old Old Wooden Ship
If there is such a thing as a summer sour, this is it. Just tart enough to poke your taste buds, but not heavy enough to leave any burn on your palate, this port-barrel-aged sour saison is heavy with the flavor of stone fruit and is likely to appeal even to people who shy from sour beers. Bonus: The limited-edition beer goes on sale at the brewery on June 14 at 3 p.m.

4) Epic Oak and Orchard - Strawberry and Rhubarb
This Denver brewery's evolving line of barrel-aging beauties hits a particularly summer note with a quite-tart offering whose acidity is offset for the most part by a flavor that truly brings to mind the filling of a pie you share at a picnic table. If the first taste is aggressive, the nose is more one of juice, and the sour ale settles down, evoking pre-alcohol memories even as it dazzles your taste buds.

5) Left Hand Peach Beerllini Radler
A new summer offering, this comes across more as a peach champagne drink at first, imbued heavily in the fruit flavor and possessing a bubbly but not over-carbonated body. But this isn't just a guilty pleasure drink; it's a tightly crafted burst of freshness with a surprising back bite of dryness. It may look hoity-toity in a flute glass, but you won't feel guilty enjoying it.

Labels: Call to Arms Brewing, Epic Brewing, Funkwerks, Left Hand Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, sour ale, Summer beers

10 Beers to Seek Out at Collaboration Fest


Collaboration Beer Fest is an event in which the wild ideas that make you shake your head when you first read about them actually turn out.  Yet, creations like the 2015 Basil Kriek Blonde — the Copper Kettle/Strange Craft Beer blend of Basil Blonde and Cherry Kriek — end up not only working but being some of the best beers you will drink all year.

With that said, here are 10 of the most fascinating experiments that will be on tap Saturday afternoon at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center when the Colorado Brewers Guild and Two Parts bring us the fifth annual collaboration blowout event.

*  Comrade/Breakside Double-Dry-Hopped Beer Pressure 1.5 IPA
Last year, Comrade teamed up with Montana's Uberbrew to make a triple IPA that arguably was the best beer of the festival. This year they are teaming with another known hop auteur to produce a hazy IPA that can't be missed.

* Weldwerks/Casey Brewing and Blending Transmountain Diversion
If these two breweries made an Old Milwaukee clone, I'd still stand in line for it. The fact that they made a double IPA may make me push people out of my way for it.

 * New Belgium/Rare Barrel On the Shoulder of Giants 2017
This is a golden sour aged in oak barrels with peaches and jasmine pearl tea from two breweries that have earned their national reputations. Enough said.

* Guild Collaboration Cherry Coast to Coast
The Colorado Brewers Guild teamed up with the Brewers Association and nine other states' craft-brewing guilds to churn out a sour ale. And they made it with Crooked Stave. This really might be the absolute definition of craft brewing.

* Mockery/Baere Mocking Baered Episode 4: Intercontinental
The running collaboration from the pair of 4-year-old Denver breweries that fly too far under the radar may be the single best story among the back stories of beers at the festival. But even without it, this giant pastry stout would be hard to ignore.

* Lone Tree/Cannonball Creek Dry-Hopped Malt Liquor
Just let that sink in. And then realize that Cannonball Creek nearly stole the show with a pale ale last year. This should be the most spot-on and yet wildest malt liquor of all time.


* Funkwerks/New Image Arnie
Kettle sour is a very popular style this year. But when you see two brewers who have consistently surprised and taken styles to new levels working on this genre, the result will be worth trying.

 * Cerberus/Fossil/Goat Patch Deception IPA
Last month I took a weekend trip to Colorado Springs and discovered that the brewing scene is as evolved and complex as it's ever been. Denverites probably don't know these three very good breweries. This sour Belgian IPA should tell you all you need to know about the Springs.

 * Fate Brewing/Ladyface Ale Horchata de Garde
Boulder's most underrated brewery teams with one of America's most interesting brewpubs to make a biere de garde with an accent of Mexico? My 2-ounce cup runneth over.

* Caution/Moonlight Pizza & Brewpub What the Duck Five-Spice GoséIf there's a beer that seems to have an ingredient that doesn't belong in beer, but it happens to be made by Caution, run to it. This collab also may introduce the world to an underrated Salida brewery.

Labels: Baere Brewing, Cannonball Creek Brewing, Caution Brewing, Cerberus Brewing, collaboration beers, Colorado Brewers Guild, Comrade Brewing, Fate Brewing, Funkwerks, New Belgium Brewing, Weldwerks Brewing

10 Best Colorado Beers of 2017

Truth be told, the more breweries that open in Colorado each year, the less beer you get to taste from any of them in particular. As such, these year-end lists become less about the beers that you drank over and over throughout the year and more about the one-offs and unique finds that left impressions long after you first enjoyed them.

Still, the variety of offerings in the Centennial State has never been greater, and the experimentation levels with classical styles have never been more rampant, giving breweries an opportunity to create something so stand-out that they can say it truly was one of a kind. And while imperial stout or IPA may be the base beer to many of these 2017 selections, it is the way those styles were interpreted that made them the ones that emblazoned 2017 with its personality.

As always, these aren't just beers that were produced for the first time this year but brews that jumped up in one way or another in the past 12 months and made their greatest marks.

10) River North/Funkwerks Saison Conspiracy Noir
A dark saison combining elements of Belgian tradition and a delicious malt-forward body, this really jumped to life because of its Syrah grape must and its Cabernet-barrel aging that teased at a slightly tart body but still let the base beer speak for itself.

9) Rockyard Plum Creek Sour
Quite a few people reacted with surprise when this unassuming Castle Rock brewery nabbed the Great American Beer Festival gold medal for wood- and barrel-aged sour beer. But this plum-forward beer (pictured at left) was both sweet and sour and truly was the best tart beer made in Colorado this year.

8) Jagged Mountain This Beer Really Ties The Room Together
Maybe the most improved Colorado brewery of 2017, Jagged Mountain hit its absolute stride with this blonde milk stout that featured the additions of lactose, coffee beans and cacao nibs. It created a full-bodied beer that tasted like it was dry-hopped with coffee rather than overwhelmed by the additive, offering a plethora of flavors that worked perfectly together.

7) Great Divide Barrel-Aged Hibernation Ale
The increasing efforts of Denver's largest brewery toward its barrel-aging program pay off again and again, this year letting a whiskey barrel soak into an already sweet and malt-forward old ale for a year and producing a delightfully unsubtle beer that hits you with a variety of flavors, each one seeming to become part of a bigger tasty picture.

6) Intrepid Sojourner Beer Project Turkish Coffee Stout
Denver's best new brewery adds unusual ingredients to its portfolio of beers like they were offered up in a "Chopped" basket. But nothing was both so unique and so style-redefining as this shockingly smooth dark ale that offered a lot of coffee grit and also a lingering sweetness that just made it taste, well, foreign.

5) New Image East Coast Transplant
A hazy double IPA that presents both a guava/mango nose and just enough hint of bittering hops on the backtaste that it both exemplifies the best qualities of the New England IPA style and defies easy definition with hints of both coasts in its complex profile.

4) Mountain Sun Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Chocolate Thunder Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout
The Boulder/Denver operators of the Mountain Sun concept go all out for their February stout month, both in terms of the number and variety of offerings they produce. Nothing, however, has ever been as magical as this, pulling together a huge body with the combined sweetness of chocolate, lactose and hints of bourbon to make a beer that is giant - but is far more flavorful than it is big, somehow.

3) Comrade/Uberbrew Triple IPA
The star of March's Collaboration Fest might just come to be the most-sought-after beer in Comrade's extensive hop portfolio if it were to offer it regularly. Highly floral and refreshingly grassy, the beer is made remarkable by its lack of alcohol burn. It's a master study in how to go big without scorching any taste buds.

2) City Star Wood Belly
Arguably, no single beer from 2017 did more to redefine the perception of a brewery than this barrel-aged imperial IPA double-dry-hopped with Amarillo, Mosaic and Citra hops. It manages to be so many things at once - wonderfully boozy (at 10.6% ABV), tropical in its hopping and imbued with such a deep oak taste that it's the rare hop bomb that becomes more flavorful as it warms. This Berthoud brewery has made solid beers for years; this, however, is a new level of successful experimentation that should garner a lot more attention for City Star.

1) Station 26 German Chocolate Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Dark Star Imperial Stout
This infinitely complex and drinkable beer debuted before 2017, but if there was a coming-out party for it, it was at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival, where the increasingly confident Denver brewery held its own against every brewer in that room. The beer is, first and foremost, exactly what it promises - a slice of rich, dark, sweet cake in alcoholic liquid form. But the barrel aging gives it just enough of a pervading influence that it kicks the flavor to the next level, and the high alcohol content here is used to accent the richness rather than overshadow it. In a year when transcending the long-held definition of dark beers became almost a competitive sport for Colorado craft breweries, none of them jumped so far over the bar as Station 26 did with this masterpiece.

Labels: City Star Brewing, Comrade Brewing, Funkwerks, Intrepid Sojourner, Jagged Mountain Brewery, Mountain Sun, New Image Brewing, River North Brewery, Rockyard Brewery, Station 26 Brewing, Top Beers of Year

5 Things I Learned from Collaboration Fest 2016



Saturday's Collaboration Fest once again showed why it's quickly become one of the top beer festivals in Colorado, as brewers toppled over each other in an effort to show off their creativity, especially with new ingredients and new styles of ale. On a day when more than 85 beers were available, some would be considered slight misses, but it was hard to find anything that was a complete fail.

That said, a few certainly did stand out. And they are worth mentioning - and begging brewers to bring back throughout this year.

1) A perfect IPA still stands alone.
Cannonball Creek and Pizza Port stole the day with the simple idea of a wheat IPA. While No Man's IPA may not have jumped off the page when looking at descriptions of the offerings, it immediately announced itself with a full mouth of smooth, flowery hops in a dangerously easy, fully integrated body. Simple, yet so well done that no one else's barrel or added fruit could steal its limelight.

2) That said, barrels and added fruit spoke very well for themselves.
If No Man's IPA wasn't the first beer mentioned in conversation during the festival, than the TRVE/Prairie Oak-Aged Gose on Oklahoma and Colorado Peaches was. A very balanced sour that mixed an occasional burst of acidity with a peach presence that was heavy without being syrupy, this was a brilliant idea.

Equally impressive was the Deux Funk, a barrel-aged sour ale from Funkwerks and North Carolina's hot Wicked Weed Brewing. Flavors of grape and a hint of kiwi/passion fruit burst out in a clean, smooth effort that was less challenging than pleasing.

3) Some bold flavors worked, some didn't.
New Belgium and Ratio Beerworks had one of the boldest ideas of the festival — a bruleed grapefruit saison that I had the chance to shoot a video about. Everything about it worked, from a minimal sweetness that evened out the grapefruit bite to its finishing with a verve of carbonation. This is how well-planned experiments should go.

That result ran opposite to the outcome of Peanut Butter Lunchbox, the Elvis tribute made by Denver Beer and DC Brau with heaps of peanut butter and a hefeweizen yeast to add a banana flavor - but maybe not quite enough of either taste. Still, the presence of what is hopefully just Denver Beer's first pass at this idea was reason enough to cheer the creativity on display at the festival.

4) Weldwerks came through.
Few breweries at the festival had as many curious eyes on them as Weldwerks, fresh off its being named by USA Today as the best new brewery of 2015. It didn't disappoint, working with underrated Snowbank Brewing to offer a Barrel-Aged Mocha Stout that was as thick as its name implies but still tamped with enough chocolaty sweetness to make this very, very drinkable.

5) Don't sleep on the amateur brewers.
Even among the piles of collaborating beer makers, one of the standout offerings came from the collaboration of New Belgium with beer purveyors Falling Rock Tap House and Star Bar. Rock Star, made with New Belgium's sour "Felix" base, was nearly pucker-worthy but calmed enough to offer up a sour-apple feel that brought you back for more.

And, as I wrote before the festival, I was privileged enough with a group of my fellow beer writers (pictured above) to team with Lost Highway Brewing to put forth the Fourth Estate Chocolate Stout, made with English yeast and Ghirardelli chocolate. The beer turned out wonderfully sweet and easy and had jaw-dropping lines at times - a situation for which all credit goes to the folks at Lost Highway.

Labels: Cannonball Creek Brewing, collaboration beers, Denver Beer Co, Festivals, Funkwerks, Lost Highway Brewing, New Belgium Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, Snowbank Brewing, TRVE, Weldwerks Brewing

The New Three Days of Festivus


Denver's coolest Christmas-time beer festival is getting bigger — and is moving some of its jolly fun outside of Denver as well.

Festivus will celebrate its third year of airing grievances and gathering all of Denver's breweries in one room on Dec. 13 at the McNichols Civic Center Building. But before that it also will drop two presents on Boulder and Fort Collins — local Festivus gatherings of their own, attempting to bring all of those cities' breweries together in holiday cheer.

For those who haven't been to Festivus, the particular joy of the event, aside from all the people who show up in ugly sweaters, is that it gets pretty much every brewery within Mile High City limits in one room, sort of like a Great Denver Beer Festival. And event organizer P.J. Hoberman has instructed participants to bring at least one rare or one-off beer to be served, producing an abundance of sours and barrel-aged treats along with the traditional offerings found at other festivals.

That kind of city exclusivity and creativity drew 26 brewers to the event last year. In a sign of how much the Denver beer scene is growing, 39 already had committed to Festivus 2014 by the end of October - including some that will be nearly, but not quite, open.

"As Denver has such a great beer scene, it's fun to have them all under one roof," Hoberman, of Denver Off the Wagon fame, said. "You can talk to that brewer and try that beer and then go buy it the next day."

It only makes sense, then, to bring out the highlights of Fort Collins (Dec. 12) and Boulder (Dec. 5) in the same way. Boulder, after all, can argue that it's America's oldest craft brewing town as home to the longest-running craft brewery in the country (Boulder Beer) and a few second-generation pioneers like Avery Brewing and Mountain Sun that made a national name for themselves or ingrained themselves fully in Colorado's culture. And Fort Collins - with its easy-touring beer avenue and run of national attention-grabbers like New Belgium, Odell and Funkwerks - may have the most impressive per-capita brewery power of any city in America.

Both of those Festivi will be smaller, featuring about 18 breweries, Hoberman said. As such, he is holding the events in smaller venues and is expecting smaller crowds (details here, scroll down on page).

Here's a bet, though, that both can be popular as Denver's if they are run well and the local brewing community responds. And when I asked Hoberman if he's willing to expand the festival to other cities - Colorado Springs' brewing community has grown to the point where it certainly could support one too, I argue - he said he would.

"We'd love to expand it to any city that has a brewing culture to support the event and any city that wants it," he said.

Fair enough. Let the Festivus games begin.

Labels: Avery Brewing, Boulder Beer, Denver Off the Wagon, Festivals, Festivus, Funkwerks, Mountain Sun, New Belgium Brewing, Odell Brewing

The Sweet Song of Saisons


Interviewing New Belgium's Kim Jordan while writing "Mountain Brew," I was struck by a comment she made about brewing a saison in 1996 and receiving such a bad reception that they didn't brew one again until 2008. What a strange beer world, it would seem, that didn't want the refreshing taste of a saison in it.

But we are now living in the age of the saison - the classic, the crafty, even the absolute crazy. Want it with just a hint of spice to it? OK. Want it brewed with sarsaparilla, sassafras, coriander and hibiscus? That's fine too. Hell, they're both made by the same brewer, in fact.

At Vail Big Beers, Trinity Brewing's Jason Yester, that aforementioned brewer and the man who's made 60 different saisons with 80 different ingredients, pointed out the number of saisons judged at the Great American Beer Festival grew from 37 five years ago to about 90 in 2013. But he also noted one of the great key's to the style's success: There is little definition to what exactly a saison is, other than a beer in a genre that evolved from a non-specific style in Belgian farmhouses to one that allows for great creativity today.

One of the beers that the Fearless Tasting Crew kept in its fridge at that festival - you know, the beers you can drink even when your tastebuds are shot - was Trinity's La Capitaine, a blond saison regale brewed with pumpkin, cacao nibs and Buddha's Hand, then tossed about with some brett and lacto until it's done just right. It's sharp and pungent and slightly spicy, with a feel that oscillates wonderfully between grape and perfume.

But if Trinity is the known - and if you don't know it, you should get to - festivals like Big Beers allow for the exploration of the unknown as well.

Dann Paquette, owner of Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, brought in his Jack D'Or, a smooth beer (with blurry label art above)
 that's higher on the bitterness scale than most other saisons but still very dry. And it, like the style, was both intriguing and drinkable.

Then, there was Mystic Brewing - like Pretty Things, a Massachusetts brewery - which offered its Descendant, a black saison made with molasses that was sweet but not overdone.

And, staying in Massachusetts for a second, there is also Cambridge Brewing, which has found a way to make a black-pepper farmhouse ale in its Sgt. Pepper (at right) and feel welcoming without being overpowering.

More Colorado breweries too are cranking up saison offerings. Both Funkwerks - the 2012 GABF Small Brewery of the Year - and Black Fox are all-saison maestros, blending peppers, fruit and everything you might think shouldn't go into a beer. And doing it well.

And you see non-saison breweries experimenting more with their offerings too. From Great Divide's Colette - which it makes even more special by kicking it up with orange zest and pepper - to Crooked Stave's slightly tart Vieille Artisanal Saison, the variety out there can be stunning.

So, what's the point? Unlike 1996, it's a damn good time to drink saison, whether you're in Denver or Boston or anywhere in between. And if you encounter one that might seem a little strange, drink it all the same; chances are it will be dry, smooth and just exciting enough to make your night.

Labels: Big Beers, Black Fox Brewing, Cambridge Brewing, Crooked Stave, Funkwerks, Great Divide, Mystic Brewing, New Belgium Brewing, Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, Saisons, Trinity Brewing

Colorado Kicks A** Again at the GABF

If you would have said before the Great American Beer Festival that Great Divide, Odell, Oskar Blues and Bristol would nab zero medals this year, I would have figured the rest of the U.S. had caught up to Colorado.

As it turns out, the state's just so good at making beer these days that the rest of its breweries are catching up on the seasoned experts.

Twenty-eight Centennial State breweries walked away with 35 medals at yesterday's ceremony - a total second only to California's (49) and well ahead of third-place Oregon (24). And Funkwerks scored the biggest prize of any of the locals, hoisting the trophy as Small Brewery of the Year.

No brewery had more than two individual medals, and the seven that did spanned the spectrum: Dry Dock, Funkwerks, New Belgium, Rock Bottom Westminster, SandLot, Tommyknocker and Twisted Pine. Some of the medal winners, such as Avery's White Rascal, are at this point considered classics; others, such as Keystone Light, are not.

But if you want to set up a tasting checklist for the next year, all the winners are listed in a story I wrote for my day job at the Denver Business Journal that includes good anecdotes about a few of the beers, including a gold-medalist from the crew at Equinox Brewing (pictured above). Check it out as soon as your liver recovers from this past weekend.

Labels: Avery Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Equinox Brewing, Funkwerks, Great American Beer Festival, New Belgium Brewing, Rock Bottom Brewery, SandLot Brewery, Tommyknocker Brewery, Twisted Pine Brewing

GABF Wrap: Colorado Shines

Labels: CB Potts, Coors Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Denver Beer Co, Dry Dock Brewing, Funkwerks, Great American Beer Festival, Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, New Belgium Brewing, Odell Brewing, Oskar Blues