Wednesday, March 29, 2017
6 Things I Learned at Collab Fest 2017
It turns out that Collab Fest didn't need the beautiful setting of the luxury deck at Mile High to stand out as a festival. Moved this year to the National Western Complex, the celebration of breweries making beers together - roughly 180 auteurs combining on some 100 beers - was just as unique and relevant without the glitz factor of being able to look down upon the Broncos' field.
What's more, the types of beers that leaped off the page this year were different than in past years, moving beyond the sour and imperial barrel-aged combinations to a surprising number of very tasty concoctions that used unexpected ingredients. Attending the event left you excited about the creative flavors that remain largely untapped still in the sector.
Here, then, are a few things that stood out:
1) Comrade killed it.
In a festival marked by immense creativity, the best beer of the day - and best by a long stretch, for that matter - was Comrade Brewing's collaboration with Montana-based Uberbrew on Uberpower Triple IPA (pictured at right). Flowery and grassy, huge without a big alcohol taste, this dangerously smooth and flavorful beer was one of the greatest hop assaults that even a tried-and-true hophead has ever had in their mouth.
2) Simple pale ales stood out as well.
In some sense it's hard for a classic, lower-alcohol taste to find a niche among so much blustery boldness. But the Dog vs. Quail Pale Ale from Cannonball Creek Brewing and Hogshead Brewery (pictured at top) was fresh and bright with a lingering piny hop that accented its British, German and American ingredients. And the decision by the Colorado Brewers Guild board to offer a light, grassy pale ale with the moniker of Board's in Session was a surprisingly good and memorable one for the 11 collaborating breweries.
3) Some gimmick beers are worth drinking over and over again.
Lady Fingers, the tiramisu brown ale from Boulder Beer and New Holland Brewing was as sweet as you'd expect but also very approachable, and it seemed no odder on the palate than Boulder's best beer, its Shake Chocolate Porter. Meanwhile, the Corner Store imperial malt lager from Gravity Brewing and Kettlehouse Brewing was a high-quality hoppy beer, with big malts offering a proper base for the slightly boozy but more aggressively flowery hop bite.
4) Others were worth one taste.
The most passionate conversation I had on the floor was with Ryan Hannigan of Focus on the Beer, who insisted that the Mr. Kelly's Coconut Curry Hefeweizen - the Boulder/Ska collaboration that was exactly what it sounds like - was the most unique and best beer on the floor. While I conceded the first part of the statement to him, the bold combination came off a bit like a thick soup full of spices more than a beer, and I was quite happy to have about an ounce of it.
5) Bread beer - the next great trend
Rye pretzels and German malts were the stand-out ingredients in Don't Kvass the Streams, a kvass-inspired German ale from Wit's End and Prost Brewing. And the sour rye taste was an astoundingly good complement to the beer base, rendering the creation both bready and slightly tart. In a market drenched with New England IPAs, I might run more quickly to efforts like this that produce new and exciting flavors.
6) Then again, sours aren't done yet.
TRVE cranked up the flavor profile with Slow Death, its whiskey-barrel-aged dark mixed-culture ale with cinnamon and lemon peel that it produced with Burial Beer Co. of Asheville. Complex and still drinkable, it reminded festival goers of how much room there remains in the sour sector that might seem saturated to some.
It turns out that Collab Fest didn't need the beautiful setting of the luxury deck at Mile High to stand out as a festival. Moved this year to the National Western Complex, the celebration of breweries making beers together - roughly 180 auteurs combining on some 100 beers - was just as unique and relevant without the glitz factor of being able to look down upon the Broncos' field.
What's more, the types of beers that leaped off the page this year were different than in past years, moving beyond the sour and imperial barrel-aged combinations to a surprising number of very tasty concoctions that used unexpected ingredients. Attending the event left you excited about the creative flavors that remain largely untapped still in the sector.
Here, then, are a few things that stood out:
1) Comrade killed it.In a festival marked by immense creativity, the best beer of the day - and best by a long stretch, for that matter - was Comrade Brewing's collaboration with Montana-based Uberbrew on Uberpower Triple IPA (pictured at right). Flowery and grassy, huge without a big alcohol taste, this dangerously smooth and flavorful beer was one of the greatest hop assaults that even a tried-and-true hophead has ever had in their mouth.
2) Simple pale ales stood out as well.
In some sense it's hard for a classic, lower-alcohol taste to find a niche among so much blustery boldness. But the Dog vs. Quail Pale Ale from Cannonball Creek Brewing and Hogshead Brewery (pictured at top) was fresh and bright with a lingering piny hop that accented its British, German and American ingredients. And the decision by the Colorado Brewers Guild board to offer a light, grassy pale ale with the moniker of Board's in Session was a surprisingly good and memorable one for the 11 collaborating breweries.
3) Some gimmick beers are worth drinking over and over again.
Lady Fingers, the tiramisu brown ale from Boulder Beer and New Holland Brewing was as sweet as you'd expect but also very approachable, and it seemed no odder on the palate than Boulder's best beer, its Shake Chocolate Porter. Meanwhile, the Corner Store imperial malt lager from Gravity Brewing and Kettlehouse Brewing was a high-quality hoppy beer, with big malts offering a proper base for the slightly boozy but more aggressively flowery hop bite.
4) Others were worth one taste.
5) Bread beer - the next great trend
Rye pretzels and German malts were the stand-out ingredients in Don't Kvass the Streams, a kvass-inspired German ale from Wit's End and Prost Brewing. And the sour rye taste was an astoundingly good complement to the beer base, rendering the creation both bready and slightly tart. In a market drenched with New England IPAs, I might run more quickly to efforts like this that produce new and exciting flavors.
6) Then again, sours aren't done yet.
TRVE cranked up the flavor profile with Slow Death, its whiskey-barrel-aged dark mixed-culture ale with cinnamon and lemon peel that it produced with Burial Beer Co. of Asheville. Complex and still drinkable, it reminded festival goers of how much room there remains in the sour sector that might seem saturated to some.
Labels: Boulder Beer, Cannonball Creek Brewing, collaboration beers, Colorado Brewers Guild, Comrade Brewing, Gravity Brewing, Hogshead Brewery, Prost Brewing, Ska Brewing, TRVE, Wit's End Brewery
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Denver's Enhanced West Side
When talk of Denver's best beer neighborhoods comes up, River North, South Broadway and the beer-bar-laden downtown all jump to the forefront. But in recent months, some new arrivals are doing their best to make sure the city's west side is beginning to get its due.
It's not like the vast area west of Interstate 25 has been a craft-beer wasteland. Hops & Pie is one of the best beer bars in the city, offering a variety of hard-to-find taps. Hogshead Brewery serves spot-on English-style ales. And Diebolt Brewing, after a relatively slow start, is making some exceptional ales, particularly its fig-infused Algerian Biere de Garde.
But the introduction of two new breweries in particular to the scene in the past six months is beginning to raise the profile of the area, and deservedly so. And as such, it's worth paying a little more attention to Call to Arms Brewing and Little Machine Beer.
Call to Arms, the brainchild of three former Avery Brewing workers, opened in July with a full 14 taps and is getting accolades for its craftsmanship as well as its variety of beers. Located on the northern end of the increasingly hip Tennyson Street corridor, it's also very family-accessible, as Lincoln (pictured with coaster) was one of four kids there for early happy hour during a recent visit.
The vast selection of styles almost ensures that no one beer on Call to Arms' tap list stands out,
though the bold, dandelion-esque Son of a Beesting IPA that was on this fall stood above many others. But the surprisingly hoppy sessionable Clintonian Pale Ale, open-fermented Burkhalter dunkelweizen and Oats and Hose - an oatmeal porter with a hint of dark cherry - rank among the brewery's other standouts.
Even more impressive in many ways is Little Machine, which opened in October in the Jefferson Park neighborhood north of Sports Authority Field. It presents a more experimental vibe and has been able to score touchdowns with a few of its efforts.
Most exciting has been its Coffee Oatmeal Stout, a Nicaraguan-coffee-infused version of its solid Tractor Beam Oatmeal Stout that has both a big coffee flavor and an almost creamy undertone. Another more limited release, the Alternating Currant Kettle Sour, offered a hard-to-nail-down raspberry/blackberry feel in a way that did not overwhelm the taste buds.
Among its more regular beers, Little Machine's Colorado Stock Ale has a hop-forward taste for a pale ale that, at 5.3 percent ABV, could be sipped through the night. And its The Reason Saison, if not challenging to the palate, is malty and very drinkable.
Like in pretty much every neighborhood in Colorado, more breweries are sure to follow. But Denver's newcomers on the west side, following in the footsteps of a couple of their predecessors, are making the area worthy of a full-day tour.
When talk of Denver's best beer neighborhoods comes up, River North, South Broadway and the beer-bar-laden downtown all jump to the forefront. But in recent months, some new arrivals are doing their best to make sure the city's west side is beginning to get its due.
It's not like the vast area west of Interstate 25 has been a craft-beer wasteland. Hops & Pie is one of the best beer bars in the city, offering a variety of hard-to-find taps. Hogshead Brewery serves spot-on English-style ales. And Diebolt Brewing, after a relatively slow start, is making some exceptional ales, particularly its fig-infused Algerian Biere de Garde.
But the introduction of two new breweries in particular to the scene in the past six months is beginning to raise the profile of the area, and deservedly so. And as such, it's worth paying a little more attention to Call to Arms Brewing and Little Machine Beer.
Call to Arms, the brainchild of three former Avery Brewing workers, opened in July with a full 14 taps and is getting accolades for its craftsmanship as well as its variety of beers. Located on the northern end of the increasingly hip Tennyson Street corridor, it's also very family-accessible, as Lincoln (pictured with coaster) was one of four kids there for early happy hour during a recent visit.
The vast selection of styles almost ensures that no one beer on Call to Arms' tap list stands out,though the bold, dandelion-esque Son of a Beesting IPA that was on this fall stood above many others. But the surprisingly hoppy sessionable Clintonian Pale Ale, open-fermented Burkhalter dunkelweizen and Oats and Hose - an oatmeal porter with a hint of dark cherry - rank among the brewery's other standouts.
Even more impressive in many ways is Little Machine, which opened in October in the Jefferson Park neighborhood north of Sports Authority Field. It presents a more experimental vibe and has been able to score touchdowns with a few of its efforts.
Most exciting has been its Coffee Oatmeal Stout, a Nicaraguan-coffee-infused version of its solid Tractor Beam Oatmeal Stout that has both a big coffee flavor and an almost creamy undertone. Another more limited release, the Alternating Currant Kettle Sour, offered a hard-to-nail-down raspberry/blackberry feel in a way that did not overwhelm the taste buds.
Among its more regular beers, Little Machine's Colorado Stock Ale has a hop-forward taste for a pale ale that, at 5.3 percent ABV, could be sipped through the night. And its The Reason Saison, if not challenging to the palate, is malty and very drinkable.
Like in pretty much every neighborhood in Colorado, more breweries are sure to follow. But Denver's newcomers on the west side, following in the footsteps of a couple of their predecessors, are making the area worthy of a full-day tour.
Labels: Call to Arms Brewing, Coffee beer, Diebolt Brewing, Hogshead Brewery, Hops and Pie, IPA, Little Machine Beer, New Colorado breweries, West Side breweries
Thursday, September 13, 2012
English with an American Twist
English beer, at its drollest, can have a stale, dated taste: Somewhere between a wet rope and a peat field that lacks smoke. So, it was with a slight bit of trepidation that the Fearless Drinking Crew made its first trip to Hogshead Brewery this weekend, three months after the English-style brewery opened in a former garage on 29th Street.
What was found was a Denver brewery that stuck to its English roots but honored them in a way that smoothed out some of the hiccups that can be found in the most traditional British beers. The result was not an Americanized version of English beer so much as it was a full-mouthed malty experience with just enough U.S. hopping to make either a Brit or Yank feel at home.
This subtle blending was most apparent in the Boys Bitter, a malt-forward, mild-bodied ESB that had a subtle but surprising sweet hop finish that brought it to life. Hopheads won't mistake it for an IPA, but they also won't be turned away by the mellow but flavorful profile it brings to the mouth.
Lake Lightning, Hogshead's summer session ale, was everything the term implies (light-bodied, hop-deficient), but it too lacked the harshness that can come in British summer beers. A cask ale of the Lightning hopped with Delta hops actually lightened the body even more. But while this was underwhelming, it wasn't unpleasant.
The star of Hogshead's lineup, however, is the Gilpin Black Gold, a London porter with a heavily coffee-chocolate aroma and flavor but a moderate body befitting its English roots. Just a slight hint of plummy sweetness on the backtaste makes it even more intriguing.
With so many breweries coming on in the Denver area, it's hard for any to cut a stand-out niche. But Hogshead is effective in being the only one with an English-style menu of beers that will endear themselves to Brits and Americans willing to leave behind heavy hops for an afternoon of subtle but satisfactory sipping.
Labels: Hogshead Brewery
