Beer Run Blog

5 Colorado Beers and Beer Trends that Have Made Fall Tastier

The time between pumpkin-beer season and Christmas-beer season has been anything but boring in Colorado this year. And while one beer in particular has stood out, there are several brews that are worth discussing while they remain available.

1) Verboten Brewing Not a Speck of Light

Just the second imperial stout offering from one of Loveland's most exciting breweries, this is, quite frankly, one of the best new beers of 2020 so far in Colorado. Aged for more than a year in a combination of whiskey barrels from Peach Street Distillers of Palisade and The Axe & The Oak Distillery in Colorado Springs, the three variants of this beauty each weigh in around 13.5% ABV.

Quite frankly, you would never know Not a Speck of Light carries that kind of strength - and that is one of the reasons why this monster is so impressive. Brewer Josh Grenz used enzymes in the mash to calm the taste of alcohol, leaving you to taste the sweet, chocolate-malt body in all its accessibility.

Of the three versions of the beer that Verboten has made, the German Chocolate Cake is the most impressive, with its combination of cocoa husks, heavy chocolate, coconut and pecans providing a sweetness that makes this dangerously smooth, the chocolate proving to be a taste that envelops the alcohol and makes it a surprising non-entity in the flavor profile. But the basic barrel-aged version of this triumph is one of those imperial stouts that stands on its chocolatey and also sweet-whiskey feel and lets you enjoy everything it is and everything it isn't.

2) Oskar Blues Death by Coconut

Oskar Blues has been making this seasonal chocolate- and coconut-infused Irish-style porter for a number of years, but never has it felt as dialed-in as it does this year. An inviting aroma with substantial coconut sweetness segues into a a body that tastes cake-like but is very smooth. The underlying body here is one of the keys - a solid effort that allows the sweet and solid flavoring to take center stage but gives it something to rest on that is classically excellent.

3) 4 Noses Lotus Rising

Released in September as the first beer the Broomfield brewery has made using Lotus hops, this New England IPA is simultaneously rich with citrus and tropical notes and yet very easy to drink. Just a lick of bitterness jumps up as the beer slides across the back of your tongue and gives this a memorable zing. Comes on juicy, leaves with enough bitterness to remind you it's all IPA.

4) Sanitas Dry-Hopped Sour

Sabro hops, as popular as they are, mar most otherwise impressive hop-focused beers by dulling a sharp impact with their coconut-oil overtones. But in this beer, they're put to good use cutting into the sharp tartness and giving the beer a more absorbing cushion that also makes it feel more laid-back in a still-exotic way. Don't kid yourselves, the hops are the backup singer here. But they act as contrasting flavors around the edges, and this all works very well together.

5) Packaging mixing multiple kinds of beers

When you're doing more of your drinking inside your home rather than trying to run the full menu at your local brewery via 14 tasters, you still need a way to get more variety in what you're imbibing. And over the past few months, breweries have stepped up to provide this, both through the packaging they are putting into stores and the way they are letting people bring their beer home from the tasting room.

Oskar Blues provided the perfect retail example with its mixed IPA pack late this summer, allowing you everything from the Pinner session IPA to a nice Double IPA in the Can-O-Bliss series. Other breweries have been offering these mixed packs for a while, but OB seemed the first to get that the same drinker wants variety in somewhat similar offerings, rather than reaching for a stout and a seltzer in the same pack.

Meanwhile, more breweries seem to allow the mix-it-yourself pack from their coolers, particularly by putting together a quartet of 16-ounce cans that allows the buyer to really dig into different flavors or different styles - but upon their choosing. Just in the examples below, I was able to get everything from an Oktoberfest to a Nelson Sauvin-hopped hazy IPA at Resolute Brewing in Centennial and everything from a Belgian red ale to a tropical sour at Barquentine Brewing of Edgewater - and learn a lot about the breweries in the process.

Labels: 4 Noses Brewing, Barquentine Brewing, Oskar Blues, Resolute Brewing, Sanitas Brewing, Verboten Brewing

7 Beers That Got Me Through Lockdown

As Colorado is starting to take baby steps out of its nearly-two-month coronavirus lockdown, there's a lot about the period since mid-March we won't want to remember. Job losses. Illnesses or even deaths of family and friends. The feeling of uncertainty surrounding everything we do.

But what I don't want to forget, frankly, are some of the brews that were comforting during this time, from a few that came out before the virus outbreak and stared lovingly from the beer-fridge shelf to ones that local breweries boldly debuted even when no one could sit in their taprooms to enjoy them. And while we wait to get the go-ahead to return to those taprooms — Gov. Polis said he is hoping for Memorial Day weekend, though not promising anything — let's raise a pint from our barrooms or front porches to some notable efforts that made this period just a little more palatable.

1) Westfax Sippin' on a Cloud
Truth be told, no beer has been more omnipresent in the Sealover household or become quite as much of a daily go-to as Urban Lumberjack, the deliciously soupy and bright hazy IPA from this wildly underrated Lakewood brewery. But Sippin' on a Cloud, its double hazy IPA effort, has been an eye-opener, packed with hops that burst forth in pineapple flavor but are cushioned perfectly by an oat-y body that absorbs the alcohol burn and gives you a smooth, full and very big alternative when you just want to forget about the world around you and lose yourself in a beer.

2) Oskar Blues Can-O-Bliss Double IPA
One of the standout debuts of the 2019 Great American Beer Festival — No, seriously, how long ago does that feel? — this beer wisely made it into cans at the beginning of the year and holds up very well even for a while in your fridge. Full of Citra hops and extremely balanced, there is no residual alcohol in the flavor here. It's less fruity than its single little brother, which was arguably the best Colorado beer of 2019, but it's very smooth for what it is.

3)  Strange Times Too
Fans of Strange Craft Beer's fruity-with-a-tinge-of-funk Cherry Kriek may never look at it the same way again after sampling this Brett-infused version of the beer, which brings it a sparkling, sharp edge and ranks as one of the best experiments this brewery has made in its 10-year history. It provides a full mouth — sweet, tart and a decent-sized body to balance all the flavors — and makes for a perfect Zoom call beer (as demonstrated in the photo at the top).

4) Cannonball Creek Return of the Mackaroon
The next time you think of the Golden brewery as a pale-ale and flavorful-lager specialist, find this beer and re-set your thinking. Dark as night with a roasty body and yet quite sweet with the blend of coconut and macaroon, this oatmeal porter is a kaleidoscope of flavors that combine into a shockingly smooth experiment that lets you experience different sensations as you roll it over your tongue. Perfect with take-it-home pizza.

5) Denver Beer Tart Delight
This lighter-bodied sour offering is not the beer that makes you pucker up, but it is the offering you want if you desire a little prick of tartness in an easy-drinking form that you can wolf down with dinner, after a hike or sitting alone on your porch pondering where the world goes next. The lime/orange palate is permeating without penetrating your taste buds too deeply. Expect to enjoy this with cookouts when they return.

6) Sanitas Mama's Peaches IPA
An early 2020 offering, this special release is the rare fruited IPA that actually works, because the peach flavor here is solid but not overbearing, laying a groundwork where it meshes with the Centennial and Summit hops. You feel the pinecone resin that should peek out in a traditional West Coast IPA, but it's mixed with a sweetness that makes you stop to consider the melange of flavors. Simply, it's a beer for many tastes.

7) Sierra Nevada Hoppy Anniversary Ale
A shout-out needs to be given to this out-of-state pioneer for a beer that it released a number of months back but that holds up well in the bar fridge despite its hoppy nature. Sierra Nevada always has had the gift of balancing hops and malt, and this special release has an early-craft feel in its use of hops for bittering on top of a slightly woody body. It won't challenge you, but it will remind you of the first "microbrewery" offering that made you fall in love with the sector.

Labels: Cannonball Creek Brewing, Coronavirus, Denver Beer Co, IPA, Oskar Blues, Sanitas Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Strange Craft Beer, Westfax Brewing

Beer and Donuts Is the New Beer and Pizza

Leave it to the couple that decided mixing IPA and mac 'n cheese was a good idea - and shocking everyone all by proving themselves right - to have the first beer bar/restaurant in Denver to open up a donut shop inside as well.

Come Wednesday, Hops & Pie will also be home to Berkeley Donuts, a shop that will open at 7:30 a.m. and be located right beside the bar that serves one of the best tap lists of local and national craft beer in Denver. Folks can come in and get the donuts - sourdough, vegan or made New England-style with potatoes for extra fluff - until around lunchtime and, if they wish, they can enjoy one or more with a beer such as a coffee stout or a barrel-aged stout, which are co-owner Drew Watson's recommended pairings.

Beer and donuts aren't a new thing in Denver. Denver Beer Co. has been offering irregular pairings of the two important food groups for years, an idea that other breweries since have picked up as well. And Oskar Blues Brewery ran one of the best donut shops in town, Hotbox Roasters, beside its CHUBurger beer bar before shutting both concepts down late last year to concentrate on its full-service restaurants and its brewing capacity.

But what Drew and Leah Watson are doing represents, in many ways, the first chance to dive head-first into trying a great donut - trust me when I say to try the almond coconut chocolate donut or the sourdough frosted with lemon poppyseed icing (both pictured above) - beside a great beer. And Drew, who has been perfecting this concept for two years in the kitchen of his Arvada house, has a few thoughts on how a perfect pairing would work.

He's partial to dark cake with dark malts, he said Friday, and has concocted a menu that includes donut flavors like S'mores, salted caramel and toffee with pretzel. But he also appreciates that a sweeter frosting could pair with a sour or maybe a wheat.

And he acknowledged that, just maybe, he's looking for a way to work hops into donuts, possibly through a combination of grapefruit or other citrus frosting flavors and Southern Hemisphere hops.

"I think any style of beer goes with any style of donut," he mused. "But I think clearly the heavy stouts and Belgians and porters go particularly well."

Donuts aren't likely to replace pizza or even pretzels as the ultimate beer-pairing food yet, but they allow for an impressive level of creativity in terms of how their richness can add to a fullness of flavor in a brew. And the idea that at least one high-level beer hangout in Denver is willing to bet big on the combination shows a continuing maturation of a city that's willing to try new things.

"Denver's a lot in my mind like Portland, Oregon, or Portland, Maine, and those cities have that donut presence," Drew said. "And I've always wondered why Denver doesn't."

Labels: Belgian-style beers, Denver Beer Co, donuts, Food pairing, hops, Hops and Pie, Oskar Blues, Porters, stouts

6 Things I Learned at the 2020 Big Beers Festival

Once again, the variety and complexity of flavors poured at this year's Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival - which celebrated its 20th anniversary last weekend in Breckenridge - were awe-inspiring. But this year's masterpiece of a festival from Laura and Bill Lodge felt distinctly like it was not just about what has been produced by some of the most experimental brewers in America but what will be coming from the industry's boundary-pushers for years to come.

New styles, new flavors and new brewers abounded - a trend exacerbated by the number of cutting-edge beer makers who asked to come out and pour this year, adding to the geographical and taste diversity in the hall. And if one walked away with a few predictions as to what more brewers will be doing after tasting their noteworthy brethren, here is what I dare say they would be.

1) Bold adjuncts in stouts are once again on the rise
If there was a standout beer of the festival, it was Wiley Roots Brewing's Du Hast Cake, a 12% ABV bourbon-barrel-aged German chocolate cake imperial stout that tasted every bit as lusciously desert-like as it sounds - but without a hint of alcohol residue, making it both scrumptious and dangerous. And while pastry stouts have become one of the scapegoats of the "beer doesn't taste like beer anymore" crowd, the only pushback I received when proclaiming this the best beer was from folks who argued Outer Range's Timber from Vanilla Imperial Stout imbued even more awakening flavors.

Indeed, Fremont Brewing's Coconut Edition B-Bomb Imperial Winter Ale and 4 Noses Brewing's Toasted Coconut BMF Imperial Stout proved also how much unique flavor could be added to otherwise big and boozy beers by throwing in something that snubs the Reinheitsgebot. And New Holland Brewing's Dragon's Milk Reserve Oatmeal Cookie tasted of vanilla, cinnamon and brown sugar - not at all of its 11% ABV holdings.

2) Fruit in a sour? How about vanilla, or an Asian soy add-on?
There were, as always, a profusion of both pucker-worthy and smooth-settling sour ales on display at the festival, but there was nothing as remarkable as Purpose Brewing's Itadakimasu #032, which infused the sour rice wine Ponzu into its body and created an entirely new flavor profile. Partly salty and thicker in body than most sours, this is not a beer that will appeal to everyone but absolutely was the gutsiest and most high-risk/high-reward offering of the festival for those willing to drink a beer and mull over it for a significant time, and Purpose owner/brewer Peter Bouckaert (shown below listening to Black Project owner James Howat at a festival seminar) should be commended for his boldness.

Slightly less edgy but no less satisfying was the Language of Origin Sour Ale from Speciation Artisan Ales of Michigan, aged in gin barrels with strawberry, hibiscus, vanilla and lemon. That radical combination melded, and also allowed its ingredients to stand out in alternating turns as it rolled over your taste buds, and it created something that went far beyond the standard definition of a sour ale.
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3) If going traditional in your sour adjuncts, ignore the typical barrels
Wine, whiskey and other traditional barrels will continue to be used, and for good reason, in aging specialty ales. But Big Beers showed exactly what one could do by reaching further afield for a supply of aging vessels.

Broken Compass Brewing of Breckenridge poured a Port-Barrel-Aged Foreign Export Stout that used tart cherries to impart a pleasantly acidic nose into a sweet and dark body with a pointedness that was lacking from other adjunct ingredients. Meanwhile, Transient Artisan Ales of Michigan put out an Absinthe Anachronism Wild Ale that gave a cherry sweetness to a funky beer without any pucker and made you think twice about its process.

4) The hazy/tropical IPA is about to get doubled
Big Beers is not as much of a showcase for hop bombs as other festivals, but after sucking down 11% ABV imperial stouts for much of the day, you certainly get to know which IPA offerings can break through even the most overused of taste buds.

Oskar Blues Brewery, which produced arguably the most eye-opening beer of 2019 with its Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA, ramped up the alcohol in its new Double Can-O-Bliss but still managed a creation that focuses on Polynesian fruit without the burn that sometimes accompanies higher ABV. Meanwhile, Outer Range Brewing of Frisco doubled the dry-hopping in its DDH Leave a Trail IPA and made a beer so juicy and bursting with melon hops that it created a new sub-genre: A hazy for people who like big hazies.

5) Clean saisons and gueuzes are the new experimental

For all the giant, genre-expanding beers poured at Big Beers, some of the subtlest standouts remained cleaner beers of Belgian origin that serve as a reminder why the country's influence should be honored so passionately.

Take, for example, the Atom Brewing 3-Year Blend Anniversary Wild Ale, which not only impresses with its smoothness but with the brewery's ability to find just the right examples of beers that meld into creations that are better than their stand-alone origins. Similarly, Referind Brewing's Le Differend Gueze is wonderfully tart but is more a better version of something that's been made for hundreds of years than a new category of the style.

6) Your journey no longer ends at the exit sign at Big Beers
One of the most brilliant strokes the Lodges came up with this year was the idea of raffling off boxes of 12 beers donated by festival participants. That allowed visitors to take home beers that aren't able to be found in their states - and for the non-profit event to raise more money for groups like the Breckenridge Mountain Rotary.

I won one of those boxes (shown below) after buying a lot of raffle tickets to support the cause. I've been working my way through beer from the likes of Mad Fritz Brewing, Side Project and the aforementioned New Holland Brewing, among others. And it's an idea, for tasting and charitable purposes that a lot of beer festivals should consider.

Labels: Atom Brewing, Big Beers, Broken Compass Brewing, Fremont Brewing, Oskar Blues, Outer Range Brewing, Purpose Brewing, Speciation Artisan Ales, Transient Artisan Ales, Wiley Roots Brewing

10 Best Colorado Beers of 2019

As Colorado exceeded 400 breweries in 2019, the need for beer makers to stand out to attract customers was never more acute. Some developed all new flavors, some put new spins on traditional styles and some doubled down on what they do best.

The result was akin to a dream scenario for fans of experimental creations, offering a wide variety of efforts that sometimes landed with a thud but often seemed to produce stunning tastes, both in one-offs and in packaged or regular-rotation beers. As such, the 10 best Colorado beers of 2019 - beers that either were introduced this year or took on a special significance over the past 12 months - are heavy on envelope-pushing but still are wildly satisfying. Enjoy.

10) Storm Peak Brewing Hoochie Mama
As breweries across the country rush to nail the "accessible sour," they should look toward Steamboat Springs, where Storm Peak produces a sour blonde ale with guava that fills the mouth with unusual fruit flavors and then eases in a tart backtaste that sticks around. Hoochie Mama won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival for fruited American-style sour ales, ensuring that 2019 was the year that Colorado began to know its greatness.

9) Briar Common Joyce + Brett
The first barrel-aged experiment from this too-often-overlooked Denver brewery was a saison that sat in one of its seven tanks for 18 months with Brettanomyces and then another nine months on French oak. But the immense outlay of facility space was more than worth it, as what came of it was a sharp beer (second from right in the lead photo in this blog) that crackles with the feel of its yeast and its barrel and at the same time is wildly smooth. If Briar Common had doubts about jumping into barrel aging, this should end them.

8) Weldwerks Peanut Butter Cup Medianoche
This beer is Weldwerks in a nutshell: An imperial stout that uses an unusual and easily flubbable ingredient coming in at an ABV (around 15%) that seemingly is too high to enjoy. Yet, the Greeley brewery nailed it, offering a thick and peanut-butter-laden creation that fills you up but also leaves you wanting more of the well-blended flavors it presents. It's another reminder that no matter what Weldwerks and founder/brewer Neil Fisher (pictured at left) is doing, it is worth trying.

7) Dueces Wild/Brass Brewing/Cerberus Imperial IPL
The most surprising find of the year was a rarely tried style from three Colorado Springs breweries that stole the show at Collaboration Beer Fest in March with a huge Polynesian hop taste that hasn't been seen before in an India pale lager. And it served as a reminder that at a time when visiting every brewery in the state is impossible, gems will continue to pop up outside the Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins area that deserve the beer community's attention.

6) Black Project Stargate Peach Rye: Nectarine Bourbon
Black Project isn't a brewery that tends to fly under the radar. But the hugely tart and complex spontaneously fermented sour ale it was pouring at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival should have gotten even more attention than it did, for it ranked among the best creations ever from the Denver sour master. And it showed that no combination of barrels, yeast and fruit is too much to handle - either for Black Project or for a drinker's taste buds.

5) Great Divide Mexican Chocolate Yeti
Sixteen years into its brewery-defining Yeti imperial stout series, Great Divide continues to experiment with flavors and, in doing so, has produced its best creation yet. Vanilla, coffee and traditional Mexican spices combine to create a flavor profile that many other breweries have tried but that arguably none has pulled off so well before now - with a 9.5% ABV body that drinks like non-alcoholic coffee. Mexican Yeti proves once again that though Great Divide is a seemingly ancient 25 years of age, it's churning out experiments as well or better than its much younger competitors.

4) Spangalang Brewery Nonesuch
Once a year, like clockwork it happens: I drop into Spangalang, try a few new offerings and hit the floor with awe at how at least one experiment turns out. This year it was Nonesuch, a lighter-hued ale that was aged first in Chardonnay barrels and then in whiskey barrels and came out with a mouth-filling wallop of grape skins, woody overtones and a Brettanomyces zing that somehow blends into one artful and lasting sweet and sour taste. The Five Points brewery has become an absolute must-stop on any Denver beer tour.

3)  Purpose Brewing Smoeltrekker # 13
What former New Belgium brewmaster Peter Bouckaert is doing at his small Fort Collins brewery is like rebellious, avant-garde art. There's an undefinable hoppy brew here, a taco-flavored brew there. But the piece de resistance of Purpose Brewing's portfolio in 2019 was a beer that approximated Bouckaert's celebrated La Folie creation - and than exceeded it with a flavor profile that hit your tart taste buds right away but then led you down a rabbit hole that embraced the well-used barrel it inhabited and let you feel an almost apple-and-cherry-like underbelly that soothed its wild overtones. This is a seasoned veteran at the height of his abilities.

2) Paradox Beer Smoked Maple Manhattan
There understandably will be people who say that the combined tastes of pancake syrup, an Italian amarena cherry made for cocktails and the base of a tart golden ale are just too much to handle in one drink. But for those who like their beers daring and dancing precariously on the edge of an overshot without stepping over it, there was no more rewarding beer made in Colorado this year. This beer changed from the first sip to the fourth to the 10th, revealing a different flavor each time - but one that continuously was unlike anything one has ever had in a beer. Fortune favors the bold, and there may be no brewery in Colorado taking chances like this Teller County artist today.

1) Oskar Blues Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA
Oskar Blues did not make the most earth-shattering beer of 2019. What it made, simply, was the most drinkable, most mesmerizing offering of the year, daring to take the hazy IPA style in a new direction by ditching the traditional hops and going all in on the tropical flavors imparted by Mosaic, Azaca, Galaxy, Eldorado and Idaho 7. Rather than redefining the style, it simply did it better and fuller and juicier and yet somehow produced a brew you want to drink both in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. The Longmont beer pioneer has never been better. And after years of producing in-your-face beers that left you impressed but wanting just one or two of them, it excelled with an IPA you feel you can drink all day and never tire of what could be best described as the feel of Hawaiian fruit salad in beer form.

Labels: Black Project, Briar Common Brewery + Eatery, Cerberus Brewing, Great Divide, Oskar Blues, Paradox Brewing, Purpose Brewing, Spangalang Brewery, Storm Peak Brewing, Top Beers of Year, Weldwerks Brewing

Beer at a Fair? That's More Than Fair.

County fairs are wonderful places. Kids can get in touch with animals, you can share carnival rides with them (the kids, not the animals) and there is more wonderful deep-fried food than the inventor of the deep fryer ever dreamt could be fattened up.

For too long, though, these light-hearted, lazy-day events that take place under the summer sun have been without the element that clearly they were made to hold hands with - good beer. Luckily, though, the organizers of several front-range fairs have seen fit to change that in recent years.

The Denver County Fair, which went down this last weekend, held a festival with 27 beers, from big names like Oskar Blues to quality little guys like Brewery Rickoli. And if you missed that, the Arapahoe County Fair will put on two of its own suds shows - a craft-brew festival at 5 p.m. Friday and a festival featuring the homebrews entered into the judging competition at noon Saturday.

Lindsay Bagby, Arapahoe County Fair Coordinator, admitted recently that she didn't know how the public would react the first time that drinking beer became a sanctioned part of the traditionally agricultural showcase a few years back. About 150  folks paid the first year to try beer from about 30 breweries, though, and the response was good.

This year, there will be just 16 craft breweries pouring, but 80 percent of them hail from within the county, according to fair assistant Lindsey Friend. Those range from Colorado mainstays like Dry Dock Brewing and Copper Kettle to relative newcomers like Pilothouse and Welcome Home Brewing. And some 450 people are expected to attend, testifying to the appropriateness of a beer festival at a Colorado fair.

And then there's Saturday's event - 12 homebrewers who worked closely with the Colorado State University Extension Office to make beers for a judging competition will pour their beer for a ticketed event that is the equivalent of the pie-judging contest - except that visitors get to enjoy the creations. This is a fantastic idea that allows folks to discover someone who, if they aren't ready to open their own place, will at least get the thrill of serving the beer like they would in a taproom, but without a six-figure investment.

No, this isn't the Great American Beer Festival in terms of variety or originality (though festival goers on Friday night will get to select a People's Choice winner of the event, which hasn't happened at the GABF since Ronald Reagan was president). But it is a great example of how beer drinking has become so imbued in the Colorado culture that it truly is something to be celebrated and enjoyed by a community rather than just at a bar.

"I think a lot of people are trying to get creative with what's upcoming, what's fresh, what's new. We're always looking for something new to add to fairs," Bagby said. "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It all just depends on the crowd."

Count this guy as one who thinks this really does work. And it's time to raise a glass to the people willing to try such ideas.

Labels: Arapahoe County breweries, Brewery Rickoli, Copper Kettle Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Fairs, homebrewers, Oskar Blues, Pilothouse Brewing, Welcome Home Brewing

Oskar Blues' Best Beer. Period.

Oskar Blues has been a national canning pioneer since 2002, released arguably the first session IPA that actually tasted like an IPA and has reeled off delicious beers in its 22 years ranging from an imperial red to a coconut Irish porter.

And that history and variety makes the following statement all the more amazing, even as it is true: Its new Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA is the best beer that the Longmont brewery ever has made.

Cloudy enough in its fireball orange color to pass for a hazy, the recently released effort has qualities similar to the hot style, from its Polynesian fruit overtones to its smooth finish with a backbite of bitterness to remind you this isn't some kind of fruit-infused IPA. But this takes all those notes several steps further, creating a brew that is nothing less than Hawaiian fruit salad with enough traditional hop kick to finish strong and create a truly unique flavor profile.

The tropical IPA — or "island vacation in a can," as one rightly could call it — is the first in a planned series of Can-O-Bliss IPAs (and, yes, the name is the worst part of this beer) that will include a hazy IPA and a Citrus IPA over the next six months. It's a nice addition from a brewery that has become one of the 10 largest craft brewers in America — a sign that it is attempting to keep things fresh without venturing too far from the hopped-to-heaven prototype that's defined its rise since the days it shocked the craft-brewing establishment by putting its Dale's Pale Ale in cans.

To be sure, Oskar Blues has produced some fantastic products in its time. Its Death By Coconut infuses that tropical fruit into a subtle but solid body in a way that allows the flavor to shine without being sticky. G'Knight, its imperial red, is a phenomenal big beer (8.7 percent ABV) specifically because it balances the malt and hop characteristics. And its also newly released Bamburana double-barrel-aged imperial stout made in collaboration with Cigar City Brewing with figs, dates and Amburana wood spirals is a dangerously easy-drinking product melding spices and the subtle hint of vanilla from its barrels.

But Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA creates a new genre in itself — one that uses Mosaic, Azaca, Galaxy, Eldorado and Idaho 7 hops to simulate the flavors of mango, guava and non-tart pineapple without adding anything artificial to the beer. It's a master class in making a bold beer that retains its hop bitterness while pulling out more new flavors than almost any offering in recent memory and, at the same time, pushing into a new, undiscovered style.

Let's hope other brewers follow Oskar Blues' lead in venturing here. And let's hope that what now is scheduled as a seasonal brew becomes year-round very quickly. It deserves that attention.

Labels: Cigar City Brewing, IPA, Oskar Blues, tropical IPA

Five Best Traditional Colorado Beers for Summer

Some say that summer is the acceptable time to break out "lawnmower" beers - lighter beers known for their drinkability rather than actual flavor. This thinking, however, is outdated and self-defeating.

These days, brewers throughout Colorado have found ways to take traditionally lighter beers and imbue them with big taste without losing the easiness to the body, giving you both craft quality and traditional quaffability in one can. And as the official start of summer approaches quickly, here are the five beers that do that best and will leave you both pleased and thirst-quenched, whether at the end of a hike or during an extended session on a porch.


1) Colorado Kolsch - Steamworks Brewing
This is refreshment defined in a craft beer. The easy-as-water body has both a satisfying fullness and crisp finish that features enough hops to register a bite without any feeling of citrus or pine. It will leave you both sated and satisfied.

2) Mama's Little Yella Pils - Oskar Blues
This is the rare pilsner that uses hops as a primary flavoring ingredient rather than as an afterthought. Yet they do not get in the way nor feel out of place. It's a smooth body with a gutsy finish, producing a lighter beer that just feels more purposeful than many other pilsners on the market.


3) Mexican Lager - Lone Tree Brewing
Too often, an overload of malts can make these traditional lagers feel awkward and heavy. But this is a beer that uses its ingredients judiciously, creating a flavor that is simple, subtly sweet and sharp enough at the finish to leave an impression. You've earned this after mowing a lawn, but you don't have to be hot and sweaty to appreciate its character.

4) 8 Second Kolsch - Elevation Beer Co.
Like Colorado Kolsch, this is refreshing first and foremost. But it has a big presence in your mouth, a combination of a smooth body with a little more hop crispness than one might expect. It's a unique melding that results in a beer that feels breezy but bites you here and there until you realize just how much you are enjoying it.

5) M.E.H. Cream Ale- Brewery Rickoli
This Wheat Ridge brewery, which caught the eye of Boston Beer early in its development, specializes more in boozy, complex ales than simple ones. But its cream ale is an undervalued secret of the local brewing scene, offering a terribly smooth and yet tasty body notable for its balance of malts that leaves it sippable but not overly sweet. And it's gluten-free, as a bonus.

Labels: Brewery Rickoli, Elevation Beer, lager, Lone Tree Brewing, Oskar Blues, Steamworks Brewing, Summer beers

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.

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

What does Oskar Blues' new location bring to Denver?

When Oskar Blues announced plans to open a beer bar/restaurant/music venue in downtown Denver, it was met by resistance by some in the craft beer community, most notably folks at Falling Rock Tap House, who said it would compete against entities that had nurtured the brewery's development. Leaders of the Longmont brewery replied that they were growing, not cannibalizing patrons.

That venue, Oskar Blues Grill & Brew, officially debuted last weekend after a month-long soft opening. And as such, it's worth looking at what the facility is, as well as what it isn't.

Those who have come to know Oskar Blues only since its ascension into the 10 largest craft breweries in America may not realize it began humbly as a Lyons Cajun-style restaurant that brought in musical acts from the get-go but took two years to get the idea to make its own beer. Anyone who's visited that original location, still tucked into an outdoor shopping center, will recognize the resemblance right away in this new venue, which in many senses is food and music first and beer as a complement to those purposes.

That isn't to say that the beer is an afterthought by any stretch. Last Saturday there were 48 beers on tap - roughly half from the Oskar Blues family that includes Cigar City and Perrin Brewing, and the other half from craft or European-invested breweries, including smaller local purveyors like Odyssey, Rails End and Odd 13. The only mega-brew on the menu was the original Coors.


So, when it comes to the beer offerings, it would be hard to say that OB Grill & Brew is cutting off the oxygen from other craft-beer purveyors. Its menu, while extensive, isn't as varied as what you'll find at Falling Rock or Freschcraft or even Lucky Pie. This is clearly the place to go in downtown if you want to find Oskar Blues family rarer or seasonal offerings, from the sensational OB Death By Coconut to Perrin's 15 percent ABV No Rules, a porter rife with cinnamon, vanilla and booziness. But no other bar was striving to be the go-to Oskar Blues destination in Denver - other than its already existing RiNo Chuburger location. And having some 25 other offerings on tap hardly makes it unique in the downtown beer scene anymore.

And when it comes to food, OB Grill & Brew also is treading a different path than other beer-focused bars in the area. Euclid Hall has poutine and upscale sausages, Freshcraft has a notch-above-normal wide-ranging menu and Lucky Pie has its pizza and cheese curds. But people who want to get the likes of crab cake, crawfish etouffee or Carolina spicy-mustard ribs aren't going to be considering existing beer bars. The food is quite impressive at Oskar Blues, and it will stand on its own, but it gives beer-focused bar hoppers a slightly more ethnic and full-plated option, if that's what they're looking for.

And a music venue that offers seating for 300
plus 48 taps - well, that just isn't happening in Denver right now. Breweries themselves, particularly Ratio Beerworks and Station 26 Brewing, have become great venues for seeing certain types of bands while sipping beer. But the major concert venues as a whole aren't beer-geek magnets for their selections, and Oskar Blues has a chance to be disruptive and new in that sense.

So, no, existing beer bars shouldn't be worried about what Oskar Blues brings to the table. The high-end Great American Beer Festival tappings are not going to happen there. And the weekend beer-bar-hopping crowds are just going to have one more option, though not one that's going to such the oxygen out of everyone else. I'll still be frequenting the other spots I mentioned, some far more than I'll be hitting OB Grill & Brew.

What the new place truly offers is extensive beer list for the crowds that are prioritizing food or music above their beer and now have a more legitimate option in which they don't have to choose between hearty, high-quality food and hearty, high-quality beers. And for some people just looking for a good rack or ribs or a good concert, it may well introduce them to the idea of pairing said activity with a locally made IPA rather than watered-down swill that's trying to pass itself off as American beer.

So, welcome the new Oskar Blues venue, Denver beer community. Maybe you won't be hanging out there all the time. But it lessens the chances that, in less beer-centric crowds, you'll be forced to hang out somewhere that can offer good chow or tunes but also offers a "craft" beer menu made up entirely of breweries scavenged by Anheuser-Busch.

Labels: beer bars, Cigar City Brewing, Euclid Hall, Falling Rock Taphouse, Freshcraft, Lucky Pie, Oskar Blues, Perrin Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, Station 26 Brewing

Still Craft After All These Cans?

Labels: beer bars, Cigar City Brewing, Oskar Blues, Perrin Brewing, restaurants, Stone Brewing, Utah Brewers Cooperative

Perrin Enters Colorado with Panache


When Oskar Blues Brewery purchased Perrin Brewing of Grand Rapids, Michigan in early 2015, few Coloradans took notice. Yeah, it was interesting to see a local craft brewery buying rather than being bought out, but Perrin wasn't even packaging its beers at the time, regardless sending them halfway across the country for anyone to discover.

Last week, Perrin cans and kegs arrived in Colorado, the product of a far bigger, more capital-flush company that, after about nine months of canning its beer in its home state, is taking a big leap into America's most competitive craft beer market in its first expansion outside Michigan. And while it's hard to pin down exactly what place it will occupy in the Centennial State, its offerings show it clearly brings a uniqueness in style that helps to define it.

Take, for example, its Grapefruit IPA - a seasonal that's part of a growing trend of grapefruit-tasting hop beers. But while many others of the ilk rely on the hopping to produce a citrus taste or might infuse a little grapefruit juice into the product, Perrin adds whole grapefruits during the fermentation process. The result is an IPA less defined by its hop attributes than by its semi-tart, bitter flavor that comes on with an intense zip and finishes clean.

Or there's Perrin Black, a style with limited competition in this market or, frankly, in many others. It introduces itself with a medium body that belies its murky dark color but that contains a full, semi-roasty flavor. The beer is Perrin's best-seller in Michigan and officials are betting it will wear the same crown here.

And then there's a beer like its Lotsa' Problems IIPA, an 8.5% ABV kick to the gut that is being
distributed locally in mixed 12-packs with its regular, session and seasonal IPAs. That a company owned by Oskar Blues has a hop bomb should leave no one surprised. That this is a musty, malty imperial IPA that overwhelms the taste buds rather than blisters them with acidity - well, that's worth noticing.

Jarred Sper, co-founder of the four-year-old brewery, said that Dale Katechis and Oskar Blues have been light-handed in their influence over Perrin, providing financing to launch a canning line and influence to open doors in Colorado, but not a script to follow on recipes or marketing, And he said all that growth was in the game plan anyway for the brewery; it just is coming sooner that many thought.

Coloradans should like Perrin for one primary reason - it's making unique beers with a bit of a carefree attitude. In fact, it's easy to see why Oskar Blues found it to be a kindred soul.

Labels: grapefruit IPA, IPA, Oskar Blues, Perrin Brewing