Sunday, January 02, 2022
Top 10 Colorado Beers of 2021
Maybe it was something that Covid did to the tastebuds, or maybe to the collective thinking of Colorado's brewers. But as the world started to segue back to some sense of normalcy this year, the craft-brewing community provided what seemed a soft landing for the state's beer connoisseurs, offering simple pleasures from well-made pale ales to hazies that concentrated on the hops to the best single-year collection of pilsners in memory.
Oh, for sure, there were bulked-up imperial stouts and the occasional multi-fruit sour that were worthy of adulation. But as 2021 passes into memory, what is clearest about the year is that the beers that are most memorable aren't the ones that challenged you so much as those you enjoyed after the long hikes or when gathering with small groups in backyards and talking about each other as much as you discussed the beers. And in many ways, nothing could have been more needed than the gems of this year's class.
So, once again, here is one beer writer's takes on the best new or newly relevant beers of this year, served with a toast to those folks who just kept working while the world worried - and gave us all one more thing about which we could be unequivocally thankful.
10) The Earl — Woods Boss Brewing/Fermly
Of all the beers lost in recent years to brewery closings, few if any had as unique a place in the beer ecosystem as the dearly departed Caution Brewing's The Earl, an English mild ale made with Earl Grey tea that was smooth and eye-opening and as good a session beer as one could imagine. So, when Denver's Woods Boss announced it was bringing it back in collaboration with Caution founder Danny Wang's beer-testing lab Fermly, true fans sounded at least a mild note of trepidation, wondering if the remake could possibly be in the same class as the original. But the multi-faceted brewery nailed the recipe and added a dash of sweet orange peel that kicked up the flavor in a new way. And a true pioneer was reborn, reimagined and enjoyed again in a new atmosphere.
9) Synthetic Substitution - Casey Brewing & Blending/Weldwerks
Ask yourself what kind of beer two of Colorado's best breweries might make, and the "no shit" answer would be: Something very good. And that answer was right. Synthetic Substitution, an 11.5% ABV imperial stout made with coconut and cacao was both as simple as its ingredients suggested and a masterfully smooth big beer, one that was perfectly aligned for sipping on Casey's Glenwood Springs patio. Casey may be known best for its fruited sours, but its showed once again that when it goes big with a handful of ingredients — and in this case, works with another master — it can transform what might just be a "big beer" in some hands into an explosion of flavors.
8) Curator's Kolsch - Coda Brewing
The year's biggest beer surprise came at the Golden History Museum's Autumn Fest, when the simple act of taking a break to grab a beer turned into an eye-popping introduction into one of the crispest yet smoothest kolsches made in Colorado, courtesy of a Golden brewery that is off the beaten track and too often overlooked. It greets you with a snap on the front of your palate that hints at sweetness but quickly envelops your tongue in almost sparkling traditional hops and malts. This is refreshing and simultaneously full of flavor. And it's great year-round.
7) Maple Pecan Yeti - Great Divide Brewing
The variations of one of Colorado's best imperial stouts have been coming at a ramped-up rate in recent years, some memorable and some that one politely might call "experimental." But this year's Maple Pecan Yeti stood out because it took flavors that both blended effortlessly with the big beer and seemed to give it a bit of a new personality. The addition of Vermont maple syrup and candied pecans — ingredients that can crash a beer if used poorly — were welcoming and comforting and made this 9.5% ABV beer possibly a little dangerously approachable. There was no burn at all here, leaving it almost like an aperitif in its personality. Let's hope this makes it into regular rotation.
6) I Just Ryed in Your Arms Tonight — Cannonball Creek Brewing
Revived after a several-year absence, this beer was the embodiment in many ways of the best that 2021 offered in Colorado: A beer that was subtle in its nature — a 5.7% rye pale ale — but packed so full of flavor in that body that it clings to memory nearly a year after it was first consumed. The rye is incorporated perfectly, sweetening the beer just slightly but really backing off and letting the pale hops work their magic. Both tasty and approachable, it serves as another example of why the Golden brewery has the longest-running streak of Great American Beer Festival medals among all Colorado breweries, a streak that isn't likely to die any time soon.
5) Anniversary 9 — River North Brewery
River North has continued to push boundaries as it has aged, even as it also has pushed out a variety of even more approachable beers. But it celebrated the last birthday of its first decade with one of its best experiments, a whiskey-barrel-aged coconut imperial stout that tasted nothing like its foreboding 12.5% ABV label might suggest and picked up in its flavor between its March release and the six-month point of its cellaring. River North often pushes boozier, usually with good results, but rarely does it pull out this much complexity. Hell, the brewery also made a Birthday Cake-flavored beer that showed how talented it is at drawing out flavors. But this beer truly something special.
4) Redwood Grand - Bruz Beers/Cuvée des Jacobins
Bruz truly burst out of its shell in 2019 when it opened its second location on East Colfax Avenue, growing out from its well-attended home in unincorporated Adams County. But for those who hadn't noticed its maturity before, it sent a huge shot this year with a multi-part collaboration series with Belgium's Cuvée des Jacobins, capped by its jaw-dropping blend of sour beer and its barrel-aged quadrupel. Tart yet fully packed with a deep body enhanced by the huge beer and barrel, this was an eye-opener at its successful Belgian Brew Festival this summer and a reminder of how much the brewery has grown every year. Belgian history courses through the veins of this beer, but its extra bite is a signal that American artistry can blend impressively with centuries-old tradition.
3) In the Steep DDH with Nelson — Outer Range Brewing
This is not the first time that the Frisco auteur has double-dry-hopped Colorado's best hazy IPA with Nelson hops. But something felt more perfectly assimilated, more natural, more ... simply drinkable and admirable about this year's version than maybe anything the brewery has done before. Bursting with tropical flavors tempered enough by the hopping to pull this back into an IPA form lovable by all fans of the style, then tinged with enough hints of white wine to remind you how complex even the most quaffable hoppy beers can be. To sit in Outer Range's taproom and choose beers off the menu to pick up the subtle variations in them is an art. This, however, is maybe the brewery's most artistic work yet.
2) German-Style Pilsner — Upslope Brewing
This limited-edition release was an absolute triumph of beer-making, showcasing the increasingly impressive Boulder brewery's ability to take a subtle style and excite in ways that even barrel-aged beers can't do by combining Old World crispness with new-world crush-ability. The Loral and Tettnanger hops emerge slowly as the spring-runoff-like smoothness runs over your tongue. But when they do emerge, they do so with a boldness that lets you know they truly are the star of this show, maybe more than expected. This is crisp, surprisingly bitter and quite stealthy with its translucent body. It's the product of a mature brewery that knows it doesn't have to shock to be memorable.
1) Double-Dry-Hopped East Coast Transplant with Idaho 7 — New Image Brewing
In a year in which bold flavor burst forth from pale ales and hazy IPAs alike, what stood out about this version of the Arvada brewery's signature beer, double-dry-hopped with Idaho 7, was how much you wanted to drink it, plain and simple. Taking arguably the best hop right now to juice up a beer with, New Image made this all about the tropical richness of the flavor, letting hops gather 100% of the love and creating something that flowed across your taste buds while exciting them in every step of the journey. It absolutely didn't seem like a double IPA so much as a reachable IPA packed with melon and occasional pineapple bursts, yet neither thick or fruity. Describing this version of East Coast Transplant, in fact, takes a back seat to sitting on the brewery's back patio on a summer night, sharing conversation with friend and occasionally stopping to say "Wow, this is good." This is where beer is now: It is refreshing, it is comforting, it is not subtle but not tearing at your taste buds. And the next time you have a chance to order this beer, you won't hesitate for even a second.
Labels: Bruz Beers, Cannonball Creek Brewing, Casey Brewing, Coda Brewing, Great Divide, New Image Brewing, Outer Range Brewing, River North Brewery, Top Beers of Year, Upslope Brewing, Woods Boss Brewing
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Collaboration still is worth celebrating
It occurred to me as everyone was celebrating our nation's independence today 10 days ago that it would have three months exactly since we should have been celebrating something else noble — collaboration. Alas, Collaboration Fest was the first of Colorado's great beer events felled by coronavirus — a list that, sadly, stretches all the way now to include the Great American Beer Festival as we've known it.
But one of the oddly positive things to come out of this time of isolation has been the slow rollout of collaboration beers. followed by an extended shelf life that's left a few of them available still. And it is to that effort that today's retrospective/perspective column is dedicated — a look at a select number of the great collaborations this year that you should either buy or tell your favorite breweries to make again soon.
Strange Times — Strange Craft Beer/Argonaut Wine & Liquor
This barrel-aged baltic porter was of the best and simultaneously most dangerous kind — a beer that churns with complex flavors yet doesn't appear to be anywhere as boozy as it actually is. Dark, roasty and chocolatey with just the right amount of bitterness, it's so easy to enjoy that you can put down four cans of it without ever stopping to take a photo ...
Strawberry Shortcake Pastry Sour — Crooked Stave/Molly's Spirits
In lesser hands, this beer could have been a juicy fruit bomb with an abnormally glowing red/pink body. Instead, it meshes all of its attributes beautifully, letting its fruit bring the sweetness, its yeast give it just a prick of sour that doesn't detract from its core taste and some wonderful brewing leave it with a backtaste of dough, as if you've just drank a tart-ish piece of cake.
The Odyssey of Flyte — Odyssey Beerwerks/FlyteCo Brewing
Every year among the bold and crazy creations that headline Collaboration Fest, one finds the almost subtle beer that you want to drink over and over again — and this beer allowed you to do just that as coronavirus shifted its production into cans. Classic in its Belgian feel, it put forth a slightly sharp, sweet taste but also a big body that heightened its drinkability, ending with tang of bitterness that made you feel you'd flown around the taste world in 12 ounces.
Jungle Rush — Westfax Brewing/Finkel & Garf
Sure, "fruited sour hazy IPA" sounded like a gimmick that was a milkshake short of a full trend house. But after a burst of orange-pineapple nose, the hops really did take over with a wonderful bitterness that stood up and complimented the citrus fruit well. Both bold and eerily subtle, it evolved as you drank it, giving you a run through a lot of techniques that all were impressive.
Strat Boy — Cannonball Creek/Pizza Port Carlsbad
While not the world's most interesting beer, these auteurs managed to make a hoppy American pilsner that also was not boring - and in doing so, created what could have been the summer sipper of the batch. Its defining characteristic was its crispness, and the surrounding bitterness helped to lay that quality down and make sure that there was something more going on in a simple creation.
Barrel Conspiracy: Mr. Sandman — River North Brewery/Molly's Spirits
As far as ambitious beers go, this bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout with orange and chocolate had few peers, at least among the beers found in the Denver area in the months following what would have been the festival. Maybe the 12.8% ABV was a little too much for its own good. But the nose itself was the single most impressive aroma of a beer that has debuted this year, launching you into a world of candy and creativity that did not overstep the boundaries of sweetness, presumably because of its notable booze.
The Cure — Brewery Rickoli/Over Yonder Brewing
Not just the most appropriately named beer for a coronavirus-cancelled festival, this West Coast double IPA showed off a subtle touch from two overlooked breweries in Denver's western suburbs. Clean, classically hoppy and full of pine and dandelions, it recalled an earlier time in brewing, both before coronavirus and before the idea of collaborations.
Strangely Epic — Strange Craft Beer/Epic Brewing
This is not the first time the two Denver breweries have combined their signature beers to make a seemingly head-scratching whiskey-barrel-aged coffee cherry stout, but it has never seemed to blend so appropriately. Darker than night and scented heavily with coffee, it allowed the cherry to come through just strongly enough that it added a unique dimension to the featured taste in a warming, enveloping stout. Ask for seconds this winter; this is what a cold-weather nightcap should be.
But one of the oddly positive things to come out of this time of isolation has been the slow rollout of collaboration beers. followed by an extended shelf life that's left a few of them available still. And it is to that effort that today's retrospective/perspective column is dedicated — a look at a select number of the great collaborations this year that you should either buy or tell your favorite breweries to make again soon.
Strange Times — Strange Craft Beer/Argonaut Wine & Liquor
This barrel-aged baltic porter was of the best and simultaneously most dangerous kind — a beer that churns with complex flavors yet doesn't appear to be anywhere as boozy as it actually is. Dark, roasty and chocolatey with just the right amount of bitterness, it's so easy to enjoy that you can put down four cans of it without ever stopping to take a photo ...
Strawberry Shortcake Pastry Sour — Crooked Stave/Molly's Spirits
In lesser hands, this beer could have been a juicy fruit bomb with an abnormally glowing red/pink body. Instead, it meshes all of its attributes beautifully, letting its fruit bring the sweetness, its yeast give it just a prick of sour that doesn't detract from its core taste and some wonderful brewing leave it with a backtaste of dough, as if you've just drank a tart-ish piece of cake.
The Odyssey of Flyte — Odyssey Beerwerks/FlyteCo Brewing
Every year among the bold and crazy creations that headline Collaboration Fest, one finds the almost subtle beer that you want to drink over and over again — and this beer allowed you to do just that as coronavirus shifted its production into cans. Classic in its Belgian feel, it put forth a slightly sharp, sweet taste but also a big body that heightened its drinkability, ending with tang of bitterness that made you feel you'd flown around the taste world in 12 ounces.
Jungle Rush — Westfax Brewing/Finkel & Garf
Sure, "fruited sour hazy IPA" sounded like a gimmick that was a milkshake short of a full trend house. But after a burst of orange-pineapple nose, the hops really did take over with a wonderful bitterness that stood up and complimented the citrus fruit well. Both bold and eerily subtle, it evolved as you drank it, giving you a run through a lot of techniques that all were impressive.Strat Boy — Cannonball Creek/Pizza Port Carlsbad
While not the world's most interesting beer, these auteurs managed to make a hoppy American pilsner that also was not boring - and in doing so, created what could have been the summer sipper of the batch. Its defining characteristic was its crispness, and the surrounding bitterness helped to lay that quality down and make sure that there was something more going on in a simple creation.
Barrel Conspiracy: Mr. Sandman — River North Brewery/Molly's Spirits
As far as ambitious beers go, this bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout with orange and chocolate had few peers, at least among the beers found in the Denver area in the months following what would have been the festival. Maybe the 12.8% ABV was a little too much for its own good. But the nose itself was the single most impressive aroma of a beer that has debuted this year, launching you into a world of candy and creativity that did not overstep the boundaries of sweetness, presumably because of its notable booze.
The Cure — Brewery Rickoli/Over Yonder Brewing
Not just the most appropriately named beer for a coronavirus-cancelled festival, this West Coast double IPA showed off a subtle touch from two overlooked breweries in Denver's western suburbs. Clean, classically hoppy and full of pine and dandelions, it recalled an earlier time in brewing, both before coronavirus and before the idea of collaborations.
Strangely Epic — Strange Craft Beer/Epic Brewing
This is not the first time the two Denver breweries have combined their signature beers to make a seemingly head-scratching whiskey-barrel-aged coffee cherry stout, but it has never seemed to blend so appropriately. Darker than night and scented heavily with coffee, it allowed the cherry to come through just strongly enough that it added a unique dimension to the featured taste in a warming, enveloping stout. Ask for seconds this winter; this is what a cold-weather nightcap should be.
Labels: Brewery Rickoli, Cannonball Creek Brewing, collaboration beers, Crooked Stave, Epic Brewing, Finkel & Garf Brewing, FlyteCo Brewing, Molly's Spirits, Odyssey Beerwerks, River North Brewery, Strange Craft Beer
Sunday, December 30, 2018
10 Best Colorado Beers of 2018
As Colorado's brewing scene got more crowded this year, beer makers responded by getting more experimental. There were more collaborations, more barrel-aged creations, more breweries such as Liberati Oenobeers and Dos Luces Brewery and Cerveceria Colorado that make nothing like anyone else in the state makes.
What it added up to was a thrilling melange of one-offs and new entries into the scene that continued to redefine both what is possible and what is going to set the pace in future years. And the best beers of this year showcased not just how far afield the flavors can be but how widespread the creativity is across this state.
And with that said ...
10) Liberati Osteria & Oenobeers In Medio Stat Virtus
The newly opened grape-beer maker is an experience that must be had with multiple beers to understand just how much the addition of Viongnier or Gewurtztraminer grapes can alter and add to the beer styles you think you know. But nothing on the menu prepared by Alex Liberati (pictured here) is as fully transformative as this Belgian golden ale made with 48 percent Chardonnay grapes, a work of art that showcases the best of its beer and wine properties and leaves you wanting to delve into oenobeers much further.
9) Weldwerks/Casey Brewing and Blending Transmountain Diversion
In a year that may be remembered most for the hazy IPA takeover of craft beer - spoiler alert, there are three on this top 10 list - two of Colorado's best breweries proved the style could be elevated when great minds worked together. This Citra- and Nelson Sauvin-hopped joyride, a double IPA introduced at Collaboration Fest, was replete with pineapple and mango tastes and aptly highlighted the style not as a twist on IPA but a bold new category of beer on its own.
8) WildEdge Brewing Collective Birthday Barrel
Colorado's greatest secret, hidden in Cortez, celebrated its first anniversary with a barrel-aged tart saison fermented with Palisade peaches that stunned at the same time it encapsulated the style of this experimental small-town beer maker. Bold and sharp, it demonstrated why beer lovers must get outside of Denver and Fort Collins every once in a while to see how deep the state's reserves are.
7) Cannonball Creek Brewing Mike and Sebastian's Excellent Adventure
Amazingly crisp while still being hop-defined, this kolsch/IPA hybrid was singularly refreshing and eye-opening. A collaboration with Pizza Port Carlsbad and Germany's Freigeist Bierkultur, this introduced a new style that is begging to be replicated - if anyone can do it as well as the new king of Golden breweries.
6) Call to Arms Brewing Majestic Wolf Lamp
Huge congratulations go to the northwest Denver brewery for taking two beers that didn't work on their own - a Belgian quad and a petite saison - and blending them together in an oak barrel with black currants until it became something combining tartness, raspberry and a jamminess. Back story aside, it was one of the most interesting and cutting sour beers of this year.
5) Epic Brewing Lupulin Burst
This earned the title of standard-bearer among Colorado's single hazy IPAs in 2018 with a straightforward assault of guava, mango and pineapple that gave this a juice-like feel. Those who don't understand why hazies are garnering such devotion need try this to understand how different they are from traditional IPAs and how much tropical flavor the right hopping can imbue in a beer.
4) Paradox Beer Co. Divide Ethos
Coolship beers are, by their nature, unpredictable, which made this early 2018 offering all the more mind-bending for how drinkable and how nuanced it could be without taking on harsh characteristics. Like a kicked-up saison, this creation from one of the Pikes Peak area's finest breweries pricked your tongue with its wild yeast but then rolled smoothly and excitingly over your taste buds to create a truly unique flavor.
3) Telluride Brewing Fishwater Project
This barrel-aged double IPA is not a new offering. But in a year in which breweries barrel-aged beer with a huge range of results and did things to IPAs (brut IPAs, horrible milkshake IPAs) that did nothing to pump up their flavor, Fishwater Project has never been more relevant than it is today. It toes the line between boozy whiskey characteristics and an underlying superbly crafted five-hop flavor explosion in a way that few hybrids can. It is as complex and worthwhile as any beer you will find in Colorado.
2) Spangalang Brewery Vanguard 3000
There is nothing natural about blending a bourbon-barrel-aged Belgian tripel with an imperial stout made with vanilla and cinnamon. And yet in the hands of Five Points' too-often-overlooked auteurs, this is a pitch-dark ride that bursts with varying flavors as you swirl it over your tongue - and one that goes down far too easily for the alcohol bomb it is. There was genius in its making.
1) River North Brewery Quadruple Dry-Hopped Mountain Haze
It sounded like a gimmick. But the addition of Mosaic, Simcoe and Idaho 7 hops to River North's Citra-dominated hazy IPA created a super-charged version of both the beer and the style, leaving it overflowing with crisp, tropical flavors, all of which carry a classical hop back bite. It was a fuller and more complete beer, without an exceptional bitterness and booziness. And if you let it rest on your taste buds long enough, you could find new flavors in almost every tasting. Bravo.
As Colorado's brewing scene got more crowded this year, beer makers responded by getting more experimental. There were more collaborations, more barrel-aged creations, more breweries such as Liberati Oenobeers and Dos Luces Brewery and Cerveceria Colorado that make nothing like anyone else in the state makes.
What it added up to was a thrilling melange of one-offs and new entries into the scene that continued to redefine both what is possible and what is going to set the pace in future years. And the best beers of this year showcased not just how far afield the flavors can be but how widespread the creativity is across this state.
And with that said ...
10) Liberati Osteria & Oenobeers In Medio Stat Virtus
The newly opened grape-beer maker is an experience that must be had with multiple beers to understand just how much the addition of Viongnier or Gewurtztraminer grapes can alter and add to the beer styles you think you know. But nothing on the menu prepared by Alex Liberati (pictured here) is as fully transformative as this Belgian golden ale made with 48 percent Chardonnay grapes, a work of art that showcases the best of its beer and wine properties and leaves you wanting to delve into oenobeers much further.
9) Weldwerks/Casey Brewing and Blending Transmountain Diversion
In a year that may be remembered most for the hazy IPA takeover of craft beer - spoiler alert, there are three on this top 10 list - two of Colorado's best breweries proved the style could be elevated when great minds worked together. This Citra- and Nelson Sauvin-hopped joyride, a double IPA introduced at Collaboration Fest, was replete with pineapple and mango tastes and aptly highlighted the style not as a twist on IPA but a bold new category of beer on its own.
8) WildEdge Brewing Collective Birthday Barrel
Colorado's greatest secret, hidden in Cortez, celebrated its first anniversary with a barrel-aged tart saison fermented with Palisade peaches that stunned at the same time it encapsulated the style of this experimental small-town beer maker. Bold and sharp, it demonstrated why beer lovers must get outside of Denver and Fort Collins every once in a while to see how deep the state's reserves are.
7) Cannonball Creek Brewing Mike and Sebastian's Excellent Adventure
Amazingly crisp while still being hop-defined, this kolsch/IPA hybrid was singularly refreshing and eye-opening. A collaboration with Pizza Port Carlsbad and Germany's Freigeist Bierkultur, this introduced a new style that is begging to be replicated - if anyone can do it as well as the new king of Golden breweries.
6) Call to Arms Brewing Majestic Wolf Lamp
Huge congratulations go to the northwest Denver brewery for taking two beers that didn't work on their own - a Belgian quad and a petite saison - and blending them together in an oak barrel with black currants until it became something combining tartness, raspberry and a jamminess. Back story aside, it was one of the most interesting and cutting sour beers of this year.
5) Epic Brewing Lupulin Burst
This earned the title of standard-bearer among Colorado's single hazy IPAs in 2018 with a straightforward assault of guava, mango and pineapple that gave this a juice-like feel. Those who don't understand why hazies are garnering such devotion need try this to understand how different they are from traditional IPAs and how much tropical flavor the right hopping can imbue in a beer.
4) Paradox Beer Co. Divide Ethos
Coolship beers are, by their nature, unpredictable, which made this early 2018 offering all the more mind-bending for how drinkable and how nuanced it could be without taking on harsh characteristics. Like a kicked-up saison, this creation from one of the Pikes Peak area's finest breweries pricked your tongue with its wild yeast but then rolled smoothly and excitingly over your taste buds to create a truly unique flavor.3) Telluride Brewing Fishwater Project
This barrel-aged double IPA is not a new offering. But in a year in which breweries barrel-aged beer with a huge range of results and did things to IPAs (brut IPAs, horrible milkshake IPAs) that did nothing to pump up their flavor, Fishwater Project has never been more relevant than it is today. It toes the line between boozy whiskey characteristics and an underlying superbly crafted five-hop flavor explosion in a way that few hybrids can. It is as complex and worthwhile as any beer you will find in Colorado.
2) Spangalang Brewery Vanguard 3000
There is nothing natural about blending a bourbon-barrel-aged Belgian tripel with an imperial stout made with vanilla and cinnamon. And yet in the hands of Five Points' too-often-overlooked auteurs, this is a pitch-dark ride that bursts with varying flavors as you swirl it over your tongue - and one that goes down far too easily for the alcohol bomb it is. There was genius in its making.
1) River North Brewery Quadruple Dry-Hopped Mountain Haze
It sounded like a gimmick. But the addition of Mosaic, Simcoe and Idaho 7 hops to River North's Citra-dominated hazy IPA created a super-charged version of both the beer and the style, leaving it overflowing with crisp, tropical flavors, all of which carry a classical hop back bite. It was a fuller and more complete beer, without an exceptional bitterness and booziness. And if you let it rest on your taste buds long enough, you could find new flavors in almost every tasting. Bravo.
Labels: Call to Arms Brewing, Cannonball Creek Brewing, Epic Brewing, Liberati Oenobeers, Paradox Brewing, River North Brewery, Spangalang Brewery, Telluride Brewing, Weldwerks Brewing, WildEdge Brewing Collective
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Best of the GABF 2018
The Great American Beer Festival took on a new look this year - a new layout for the booths, a new group of special sections on the floor, an extra 100,000 feet in the Colorado Convention Center for wandering. But what didn't change was the quality of the beer being poured and the excitement that could be found in new discoveries.
And in evaluating what stood out this year, it wasn't one style or brewery so much as the multitude of flavors on display from so many parts of the country. And to that end — the diversity of excellence that makes it hard to cite a definitive must-have experience at the 37th annual event but acknowledges that there were multiple paths beer lovers could take to finding the many, many "it" beers out there — is what this column is dedicated.
Beer of the Festival: Parish Brewing Jameson-Barrel-Aged Irish Coffee Stout
If there was one offering that continually came to mind as both unique and delicious, it was this combination — which, in retrospect, represents a bit of a no-duh moment — of a beer mimicking a classic Irish drink aged in the barrel that produces the alcoholic part of that drink. A melange of cream, booziness and coffee —wrapped in a dark body that stands on its own yet lets all the tastes shine though — represented the best of what experimentation could produce this year. And it came from a Louisiana brewery, to boot.
Brewery of the Festival: Speciation Artisan Ales
This not-yet-two-year-old Michigan spontaneous-yeast specialist is breaking new ground with its use of tequila and mezcal barrels, and bringing new flavors to the sour genre. And it was hard not to return to its booth continually to run the entire menu of its offerings. Its Proglacial tequila sour with passion fruit burst to life with complex and full flavors; similarly, its Saltation tequila-barrel-aged ale with blood orange and salt created its own universe of taste that was both tart and refreshing.
Beer-Drinking Experience of the Festival: The Referend Bier Blendery
In the hub-bub of tens of thousands of people rushing to get the best pours, the actual experience of beer presentation is usually lost. But the folks from this New Jersey brewery took visitors to their booth through a step-by-step explanation of the process of fermenting and aging their beer to create its terroir — doing so while pouring out of carefully crafted baskets to hold their bottles — and left a new appreciation for what you could learn about new and yet old-world brewing methods in just a short time. And the beer was sharp, dry and delicious.
Best (Non-Speciation) Sour: Two Roads Brewing Philsamic
This Flanders Red from Connecticut managed to find the perfect balance of cutting tartness and enveloping fruit flavors, managing both to stun with its complexity and to please with its drinkability. A close second goes to Epic Brewing's Oak & Orchard Pink Guava, which used the fruit to conjure a bright and brilliant taste that reminded one of tart lemonade.
Best Hop Bomb: River North Quadruple Dry-Hopped Mountain Haze
The only place you could find this Denver brewery pouring at the festival was briefly in the Buffalo Wild Wings booth. But what it broke out for the week was an amazingly smooth hazy IPA that was alive with tropical fruit flavors as its normally Citra-dominated beer added Mosaic, Simcoe and Idaho 7 hops and created a symphony of flavors that no out-of-state comer could match.
Best Addition to the Festival: Jameson Caskmates section
Highlighting the work of 17 breweries that aged a wide range of beers in Irish whiskey barrels, including the aforementioned Parish Brewing, was like a national tour of experimental flavors. Not every combination worked. But from Fat Head's decision to age its Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout in the vessels and pick up a new twist of flavor to Heavy Seas Beer's IPA being dry-hopped and then aged, there was a startling variety of new tastes created.
Worst Addition to the Festival: Exterior line management
I'm not sure exactly what changed in the way that people were let into the festival. But horror stories abounded — from the Beer Geekette arriving right as doors opened Thursday and having to wait 35 minutes to get in, to a friend relating the tale of the Saturday-afternoon line wrapping twice around the convention center. Something went very wrong, and ticket holders spent too much time waiting to get beer in their glasses.
Best Reminders that Great Beers Don't Have to Change: Serendipity and Hop Zombie
It was worth waiting, once again, in a 30-person line at New Glarus Brewing, for Serendipity — an ale brewed with cherries, apples and cranberries and found annually in Denver only at the GABF — to remember just how rich fruit beer can be without being soured. And in an era of hazy-everything IPAs, Lone Tree Brewing's imperial red IPA, Hop Zombie, was almost shocking in its ability to imbue deep hop flavors in a complex, dark body.
Best Find of the Festival: Devil Wind Brewing Watermelon Wingman Gose
Tucked into a side booth with just three beers being poured, this line-less brewery got more out of an often-too-subtle fruit than any bigger-name brewer has. But for the story of how I found out, you'll have to check back in my next blog ...
The Great American Beer Festival took on a new look this year - a new layout for the booths, a new group of special sections on the floor, an extra 100,000 feet in the Colorado Convention Center for wandering. But what didn't change was the quality of the beer being poured and the excitement that could be found in new discoveries.
And in evaluating what stood out this year, it wasn't one style or brewery so much as the multitude of flavors on display from so many parts of the country. And to that end — the diversity of excellence that makes it hard to cite a definitive must-have experience at the 37th annual event but acknowledges that there were multiple paths beer lovers could take to finding the many, many "it" beers out there — is what this column is dedicated.
Beer of the Festival: Parish Brewing Jameson-Barrel-Aged Irish Coffee Stout
If there was one offering that continually came to mind as both unique and delicious, it was this combination — which, in retrospect, represents a bit of a no-duh moment — of a beer mimicking a classic Irish drink aged in the barrel that produces the alcoholic part of that drink. A melange of cream, booziness and coffee —wrapped in a dark body that stands on its own yet lets all the tastes shine though — represented the best of what experimentation could produce this year. And it came from a Louisiana brewery, to boot.
Brewery of the Festival: Speciation Artisan Ales
This not-yet-two-year-old Michigan spontaneous-yeast specialist is breaking new ground with its use of tequila and mezcal barrels, and bringing new flavors to the sour genre. And it was hard not to return to its booth continually to run the entire menu of its offerings. Its Proglacial tequila sour with passion fruit burst to life with complex and full flavors; similarly, its Saltation tequila-barrel-aged ale with blood orange and salt created its own universe of taste that was both tart and refreshing.
Beer-Drinking Experience of the Festival: The Referend Bier BlenderyIn the hub-bub of tens of thousands of people rushing to get the best pours, the actual experience of beer presentation is usually lost. But the folks from this New Jersey brewery took visitors to their booth through a step-by-step explanation of the process of fermenting and aging their beer to create its terroir — doing so while pouring out of carefully crafted baskets to hold their bottles — and left a new appreciation for what you could learn about new and yet old-world brewing methods in just a short time. And the beer was sharp, dry and delicious.
Best (Non-Speciation) Sour: Two Roads Brewing Philsamic
This Flanders Red from Connecticut managed to find the perfect balance of cutting tartness and enveloping fruit flavors, managing both to stun with its complexity and to please with its drinkability. A close second goes to Epic Brewing's Oak & Orchard Pink Guava, which used the fruit to conjure a bright and brilliant taste that reminded one of tart lemonade.
Best Hop Bomb: River North Quadruple Dry-Hopped Mountain Haze
The only place you could find this Denver brewery pouring at the festival was briefly in the Buffalo Wild Wings booth. But what it broke out for the week was an amazingly smooth hazy IPA that was alive with tropical fruit flavors as its normally Citra-dominated beer added Mosaic, Simcoe and Idaho 7 hops and created a symphony of flavors that no out-of-state comer could match.
Best Addition to the Festival: Jameson Caskmates section
Highlighting the work of 17 breweries that aged a wide range of beers in Irish whiskey barrels, including the aforementioned Parish Brewing, was like a national tour of experimental flavors. Not every combination worked. But from Fat Head's decision to age its Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout in the vessels and pick up a new twist of flavor to Heavy Seas Beer's IPA being dry-hopped and then aged, there was a startling variety of new tastes created.
Worst Addition to the Festival: Exterior line management
I'm not sure exactly what changed in the way that people were let into the festival. But horror stories abounded — from the Beer Geekette arriving right as doors opened Thursday and having to wait 35 minutes to get in, to a friend relating the tale of the Saturday-afternoon line wrapping twice around the convention center. Something went very wrong, and ticket holders spent too much time waiting to get beer in their glasses.
Best Reminders that Great Beers Don't Have to Change: Serendipity and Hop Zombie
It was worth waiting, once again, in a 30-person line at New Glarus Brewing, for Serendipity — an ale brewed with cherries, apples and cranberries and found annually in Denver only at the GABF — to remember just how rich fruit beer can be without being soured. And in an era of hazy-everything IPAs, Lone Tree Brewing's imperial red IPA, Hop Zombie, was almost shocking in its ability to imbue deep hop flavors in a complex, dark body.
Best Find of the Festival: Devil Wind Brewing Watermelon Wingman Gose
Tucked into a side booth with just three beers being poured, this line-less brewery got more out of an often-too-subtle fruit than any bigger-name brewer has. But for the story of how I found out, you'll have to check back in my next blog ...
Labels: Fat Head's Brewery, Great American Beer Festival, Heavy Seas Beer, Lone Tree Brewing, New Glarus, Parish Brewing, River North Brewery, Speciation Artisan Ales, The Referend Bier Blendery, Two Roads Brewing
Thursday, August 09, 2018
A Treatise: Hazy IPA Is Here to Stay - And You Should Learn to Love It
Just one sip of Epic Brewing's Lupulin Burst leaves you no doubt that you are putting an entirely new style of beer into your mouth. It isn't just that you are looking into a glass of murky, almost soupy liquid. It's that what flows over your tongue is so full of pineapple and mango, so juicy and yet still so crisp in its hop backbone, that you can't categorize it as much as you can sit and admire.
Well, actually now you can categorize it - it's a hazy IPA, a strange-looking riff on America's contribution to the increased bitterness in worldwide ales that was mocked at first as the product of lazy brewers, then slowly grew an acceptance as it developed an increased following. This year, the Brewers Association created a category for Great American Beer Festival judging called "Hazy or Juicy IPA," and it received 414 entries - far more than traditional category leader American-style IPA and more than enough to tell haters of the style that their time was done.
But the realness of hazy IPA - and its true beauty - lies in more than its mass proliferation in the craft-beer scene. After two years of evolution, it lies in the fact that this style is no longer an off-shoot of IPA so much as it is something truly different. At its best, the beer represents an outpouring of tropical flavors that even the boldest traditional IPAs have only hinted at in their aroma and flavor. It signifies a blending of bitterness and softness that once might be considered unthinkable, as well as refreshment in a way that aggressively flavored beers have never presented.
And it's time to stop nitpicking, to quit complaining and just to give this evolutionary and revolutionary style its due, because it's not going away.
"The average bitterness (in IPAs) is coming down. I think that's about consumer preference," said Neil Fisher, head brewer and owner of Weldwerks Brewing, after an experimental brewing seminar on New England-style IPAs at this year's Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival. "We tried to veer away from brewing to the aesthetic and more toward brewing to the style that we love. Nobody who is doing this is saying 'I want to make it hazy.'"
Fisher, who is one of the true pioneers of the style, began making juicier, more approachable IPAs because he, like many beer geeks, was turned off in the late 2000s by the rush to produce triple IPAs and other such beers that exceeded 100 IBUs. He estimated at the Big Beers seminar that 95 percent of the brewers making hazy or New-England-style IPAs were brewers producing less than 20,000 barrels a year who don't have labs set up to record earth-shattering IBU levels in their products.
Much of the flavoring in these hazy IPAs comes from dry-hopping, giving them both a more appreciable nose and a more prevalent taste of these citrus hops, whether they be Mosaic or Citra or El Diablo. At certain rates of dry-hopping, you actually lower the IBUs in beer, making it less lastingly bitter while blowing up the flavor of the lupulin and letting it be so bold as to bend genres on the juiciness that one can pack into beer.
Weldwerks seemed to introduce Colorado to the idea of hazy IPAs through its Juicy Bits, a beer that is light on bitterness in the nose but heavy in pineapple in the taste, ultimately finishing smoothly while bombarding you with flavor. And quick to the party was Outer Range Brewing of Frisco, creating palate pleasers like In the Deep Steep Double IPA, a beer that offers both huge citrus and big hop acidity lingering on the back of your palate, producing oddly soft and tropical tones that leave you longing for more.
But if not every brewery was quick to jump on board with the trend, several have made up for lost time in just the past six months with beers that push the envelope even further away from sharp bitterness and toward an almost Hawaiian burst of flavors that celebrate the diversity of hops.
Epic is the poster child for adaptation of the style, jumping into the genre only this year but producing a beer in Lupulin Burst that is so uniquely flavorful that it very well may be the best beer of any type produced so far in 2018. But the Denver brewery deserves credit also for making a slightly smaller version of the style, RiNo APA, that want an easier haze that is delightfully subtle in both its bitterness and its juice.
Great Divide Brewing, which seemed slightly conflicted on how far it wanted to dive into the haze pool with its Heyday IPA introduced in April, went full-in this summer with its Hazy IPA, to great results. This presents a citrusy, lush hop that never fails to finish its introduction with a back hop bite, and it all comes at you so smoothly that you'll want to drink all night.
River North Brewing hits home too with its Mountain Haze, which relies on Citra hops to give you both sweet and bitter but threads a needle perfectly between the two flavors, leaving you both sated and thirsty for more of the flavor when you are done.
Still, some of the finest hazy IPAs in Colorado come from smaller brewers who have thrown caution to the wind and produced such genre-redefining examples of the beer that they can not be ignored.
Urban Lumbe
rjack IPA, from Lakewood's Westfax Brewing, resembles hop soup but boasts both sweet and full pine and satisfies in every drop.
And Colorado Springs' Cerberus Brewing has crafted an Elysium IPA that is slightly more bitter on the back bite than some of its stylistic brethren but envelops your taste buds in mango and guava on the way there such that you feel you've been feasting on something Polynesian with just a hint of pine needles as the aftertaste.
There undoubtedly will be more breakthroughs and more notable, crushable hazy IPAs to come. But the best way beer drinkers can prepare for them is to accept that this is not just some bastardization of the IPA - unlike, say, the milkshake IPAs that have earned their own level of hell in Dante's Inferno - but a turn toward a different flavor profile that opens up a new storehouse of tastes in craft beer.
This is worth celebrating.
Just one sip of Epic Brewing's Lupulin Burst leaves you no doubt that you are putting an entirely new style of beer into your mouth. It isn't just that you are looking into a glass of murky, almost soupy liquid. It's that what flows over your tongue is so full of pineapple and mango, so juicy and yet still so crisp in its hop backbone, that you can't categorize it as much as you can sit and admire.
Well, actually now you can categorize it - it's a hazy IPA, a strange-looking riff on America's contribution to the increased bitterness in worldwide ales that was mocked at first as the product of lazy brewers, then slowly grew an acceptance as it developed an increased following. This year, the Brewers Association created a category for Great American Beer Festival judging called "Hazy or Juicy IPA," and it received 414 entries - far more than traditional category leader American-style IPA and more than enough to tell haters of the style that their time was done.
But the realness of hazy IPA - and its true beauty - lies in more than its mass proliferation in the craft-beer scene. After two years of evolution, it lies in the fact that this style is no longer an off-shoot of IPA so much as it is something truly different. At its best, the beer represents an outpouring of tropical flavors that even the boldest traditional IPAs have only hinted at in their aroma and flavor. It signifies a blending of bitterness and softness that once might be considered unthinkable, as well as refreshment in a way that aggressively flavored beers have never presented.
And it's time to stop nitpicking, to quit complaining and just to give this evolutionary and revolutionary style its due, because it's not going away.
Fisher, who is one of the true pioneers of the style, began making juicier, more approachable IPAs because he, like many beer geeks, was turned off in the late 2000s by the rush to produce triple IPAs and other such beers that exceeded 100 IBUs. He estimated at the Big Beers seminar that 95 percent of the brewers making hazy or New-England-style IPAs were brewers producing less than 20,000 barrels a year who don't have labs set up to record earth-shattering IBU levels in their products.
Much of the flavoring in these hazy IPAs comes from dry-hopping, giving them both a more appreciable nose and a more prevalent taste of these citrus hops, whether they be Mosaic or Citra or El Diablo. At certain rates of dry-hopping, you actually lower the IBUs in beer, making it less lastingly bitter while blowing up the flavor of the lupulin and letting it be so bold as to bend genres on the juiciness that one can pack into beer.
Weldwerks seemed to introduce Colorado to the idea of hazy IPAs through its Juicy Bits, a beer that is light on bitterness in the nose but heavy in pineapple in the taste, ultimately finishing smoothly while bombarding you with flavor. And quick to the party was Outer Range Brewing of Frisco, creating palate pleasers like In the Deep Steep Double IPA, a beer that offers both huge citrus and big hop acidity lingering on the back of your palate, producing oddly soft and tropical tones that leave you longing for more.
But if not every brewery was quick to jump on board with the trend, several have made up for lost time in just the past six months with beers that push the envelope even further away from sharp bitterness and toward an almost Hawaiian burst of flavors that celebrate the diversity of hops.
Great Divide Brewing, which seemed slightly conflicted on how far it wanted to dive into the haze pool with its Heyday IPA introduced in April, went full-in this summer with its Hazy IPA, to great results. This presents a citrusy, lush hop that never fails to finish its introduction with a back hop bite, and it all comes at you so smoothly that you'll want to drink all night.
Still, some of the finest hazy IPAs in Colorado come from smaller brewers who have thrown caution to the wind and produced such genre-redefining examples of the beer that they can not be ignored.
Urban Lumbe
rjack IPA, from Lakewood's Westfax Brewing, resembles hop soup but boasts both sweet and full pine and satisfies in every drop.And Colorado Springs' Cerberus Brewing has crafted an Elysium IPA that is slightly more bitter on the back bite than some of its stylistic brethren but envelops your taste buds in mango and guava on the way there such that you feel you've been feasting on something Polynesian with just a hint of pine needles as the aftertaste.
There undoubtedly will be more breakthroughs and more notable, crushable hazy IPAs to come. But the best way beer drinkers can prepare for them is to accept that this is not just some bastardization of the IPA - unlike, say, the milkshake IPAs that have earned their own level of hell in Dante's Inferno - but a turn toward a different flavor profile that opens up a new storehouse of tastes in craft beer.
This is worth celebrating.
Labels: Big Beers, Cerberus Brewing, Epic Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Great Divide, hazy IPAs, Outer Range Brewing, River North Brewery, Weldwerks Brewing, Westfax Brewing
Sunday, December 31, 2017
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.
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.
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.
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
Thursday, November 23, 2017
The Not-So-Subtle Joy of Drinking Imperial Stouts
Wandering through the third floor of the McNichols Civic Center Building last month during Denver Rare Beer Tasting was the equivalent of being trapped in a black hole. Everything being poured was heavy and dense, and no light could shine through any glass.
The biggest difference was, however, that this was an experience you enjoyed so much that you could even begin to pick up subtleties in the booth after booth of the 16- to 19-percent-ABV beers in which you were imbibing. And through that, you could see how far the craft beer industry has come in the past 10 years.
It's not that imperial stouts weren't tasty circa 2007. But those that pushed 10 or 11 percent ABV at the time tended to be beers whose alcohol content was readily apparent. A big beer often brought with it a big, boozy taste. And there was a limit to how many of those you could drink.
Today, however, you can find a beer like Avery Brewing's Black Eye, a 3-year-old rum-barrel-aged imperial stout that grew to 18.8 percent ABV by the time it hit drinkers' glasses last month. Its body was bursting with depth and darkness, but it also was shockingly smooth, using its enormous malt base to cover any residual alcohol burn. It not only was a great beer; it was damn near dangerous.
At just that one event, however, you could also find River North Brewery's 18 percent Vicennial Shadowman, which presented a huge mouthful of almost sooty dark malt that was shockingly drinkable. There was WeldWerks' Medianoche Reserve, which weighed in at 13.5 percent but added an astounding smoothness to its underlying cocoa punch. And even a beer like New Holland Brewing's "Dragon's Milk: Michigan's Winter" added a little burn to its 16 percent body, but not enough to overshadow a bittersweet coffee palate that made you want more.
It isn't just at specialty beer festivals that you find these big-bodied gems, either. Taprooms across the state are featuring experimental and seasonal creations of substantial girth right now, much in the way that virtually every taproom is trying its hand at a New England-style IPA.
So, you can actively seek out a hammer of a beer like Verboten Brewing's Little Nonsense, which packs heavy flavors of both bourbon and vanilla from its barrel aging and manages to be every bit as tasty as it is aggressive.
Or you can find a hidden treasure like Goldspot Brewing's Black Whiskey River Imperial Stout. At 10.5 percent, it's almost a light beer compared to some in this group, and its body isn't as pelting with heaviness as others. But after sitting 5-1/2 months in a Laws Whiskey House barrel, it takes on a lot of warming whiskey flavor but still allows the rough-hewn, slightly mocha edge of the body to take center stage.
And let's not forget, the incomparable Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival - scheduled for Jan. 4-6 in Breckenridge - will be another showcase for the creativity in the imperial stout world.
The joy in drinking these beers is both complex and simple. The flavor profiles they raise bring up tastes ranging from sweetness to heat to bitterness, and picking them out of the big, meaty body is both challenging and satisfying. Yet there is a simplicity in enjoying the idea of a brewer tossing everything they have into one recipe, rolling the dice and letting the experiment end in a boozy, warming toast to their gutsy resolve.
While co-hosting American Craft Beer Radio a couple of weeks ago, I asked Wynkoop head brewer John Sims if I was crazy to think these beers were getting smoother and easier to drink even as they are getting bigger - while we were enjoying his Captain K's Final Daze, an imperial honey brown that offered both depth and a sweetness that was anything but cloying.
He told me that I was not nuts and that brewing techniques have evolved so much in the 24 years he's been in the industry that the methods for making and aging beers have taken off some of their alcoholic roughness while accenting the malts and the occasional additives even more.
To that, I say cheers. And as the nights turn colder, I plan to raise more pints (or smaller servings) of imperial stouts that will intoxicate me as much with their taste as they will with their alcohol content.
Wandering through the third floor of the McNichols Civic Center Building last month during Denver Rare Beer Tasting was the equivalent of being trapped in a black hole. Everything being poured was heavy and dense, and no light could shine through any glass.
The biggest difference was, however, that this was an experience you enjoyed so much that you could even begin to pick up subtleties in the booth after booth of the 16- to 19-percent-ABV beers in which you were imbibing. And through that, you could see how far the craft beer industry has come in the past 10 years.
It's not that imperial stouts weren't tasty circa 2007. But those that pushed 10 or 11 percent ABV at the time tended to be beers whose alcohol content was readily apparent. A big beer often brought with it a big, boozy taste. And there was a limit to how many of those you could drink.
Today, however, you can find a beer like Avery Brewing's Black Eye, a 3-year-old rum-barrel-aged imperial stout that grew to 18.8 percent ABV by the time it hit drinkers' glasses last month. Its body was bursting with depth and darkness, but it also was shockingly smooth, using its enormous malt base to cover any residual alcohol burn. It not only was a great beer; it was damn near dangerous.
At just that one event, however, you could also find River North Brewery's 18 percent Vicennial Shadowman, which presented a huge mouthful of almost sooty dark malt that was shockingly drinkable. There was WeldWerks' Medianoche Reserve, which weighed in at 13.5 percent but added an astounding smoothness to its underlying cocoa punch. And even a beer like New Holland Brewing's "Dragon's Milk: Michigan's Winter" added a little burn to its 16 percent body, but not enough to overshadow a bittersweet coffee palate that made you want more.
It isn't just at specialty beer festivals that you find these big-bodied gems, either. Taprooms across the state are featuring experimental and seasonal creations of substantial girth right now, much in the way that virtually every taproom is trying its hand at a New England-style IPA.
So, you can actively seek out a hammer of a beer like Verboten Brewing's Little Nonsense, which packs heavy flavors of both bourbon and vanilla from its barrel aging and manages to be every bit as tasty as it is aggressive.
Or you can find a hidden treasure like Goldspot Brewing's Black Whiskey River Imperial Stout. At 10.5 percent, it's almost a light beer compared to some in this group, and its body isn't as pelting with heaviness as others. But after sitting 5-1/2 months in a Laws Whiskey House barrel, it takes on a lot of warming whiskey flavor but still allows the rough-hewn, slightly mocha edge of the body to take center stage.
And let's not forget, the incomparable Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival - scheduled for Jan. 4-6 in Breckenridge - will be another showcase for the creativity in the imperial stout world.
The joy in drinking these beers is both complex and simple. The flavor profiles they raise bring up tastes ranging from sweetness to heat to bitterness, and picking them out of the big, meaty body is both challenging and satisfying. Yet there is a simplicity in enjoying the idea of a brewer tossing everything they have into one recipe, rolling the dice and letting the experiment end in a boozy, warming toast to their gutsy resolve.
While co-hosting American Craft Beer Radio a couple of weeks ago, I asked Wynkoop head brewer John Sims if I was crazy to think these beers were getting smoother and easier to drink even as they are getting bigger - while we were enjoying his Captain K's Final Daze, an imperial honey brown that offered both depth and a sweetness that was anything but cloying.
He told me that I was not nuts and that brewing techniques have evolved so much in the 24 years he's been in the industry that the methods for making and aging beers have taken off some of their alcoholic roughness while accenting the malts and the occasional additives even more.
To that, I say cheers. And as the nights turn colder, I plan to raise more pints (or smaller servings) of imperial stouts that will intoxicate me as much with their taste as they will with their alcohol content.
Labels: American Craft Beer Radio, Avery Brewing, Big Beers, Denver Rare Beer Tasting, Goldspot Brewing, imperial stouts, New Holland Brewing, River North Brewery, Verboten Brewing, Weldwerks Brewing, Wynkoop Brewery
Friday, January 15, 2016
Top 10 Colorado Beers of 2015
First, I have to apologize to all of you — and yes, I mean both of you — who have been asking what's happened to my blog as of late. Between the Jan. 3 due date for my book and Jan. 16 due date for my second child, I've had to pull my attention elsewhere. But, hey, nothing gets a writer like me going quite like a deadline.
That said, 2015 as a whole was another year of experimentation by Colorado breweries but also a year of taking simple styles and just making them ridiculously good. And with that, you will see that the following list contains a little of both, with a complete rainbow of flavors that show once again how the biggest experiments can have some of the biggest payoffs.
10) Odd 13 Humulus Kalecumber
Few breweries took as giant a leap forward this year as this Lafayette beer maker, which dialed in on its sours and increased distribution in the metro area. But nothing was as shockingly tasty as this Berliner Weisse brewed with kale, cucumber and mint - tart and yet undefinable.
9) CaseyBrewing & Blending Saison
Troy Casey is building a cult following with the tart and fruit-infused beers he is putting together in Glenwood Springs. But his greatest feat was offering a clean and crisp saison that jumped to the top of its style in Colorado — and one that appeals to both edgier and more traditional palates.
8) Mockery Brewing Lapsang Souchong
This brewery tucked around the corner from Great Divide's Barrel Bar made its name in 2015 with beers that were made perfectly and had just a little twist. None was more satisfying that this smoked tea lager that was light-bodied but permeated the palate completely.
7) Ska Estival Cream Stout
Ska took your expectations and tossed them out the window twice with this masterpiece. First, it made its primary summer seasonal a stout — and one that was easy to drink even in the warmest weather. And then it added cream and orange zest and made a dark beer smooth and slightly fruity.
6) Avery Antonius' Carmen
The opening of Avery's destination brewery in Boulder County gave it more taps to dole out its growing barrel-aged collection. The biggest and best surprise of the year there was this dark sour ale aged in Madeira barrels, beautifully chewy and bright.
5) River North Third Anniversary Ale
A 17 percent saison designed to celebrate an anniversary of these Denver auteurs sounded at first like a gimmick that would backfire. On the contrary this was bold and sweet and shockingly smooth, and the alcohol was muted enough to make it both delicious and dangerous.
4) Horse & Dragon Sad Panda Coffee Stout
The best thing to come out of the craft-beer mecca that is Fort Collins this year not only was introduced originally in 2014 but was made by one of the smallest and newest breweries in the city. Yet, this coffee stout with a hint of sweetness drank like one of the most perfect blends of big and accessible in Colorado, and the hope is that it gets more widespread distribution this year.
3) Ratio New Wave
Arguably the best new Colorado brewery of 2015 opened in Denver's RiNo neighborhood with a saison and a scotch ale that tasted like the works of seasoned veterans. But what announced Ratio's presence with authority was this summer-released strawberry Berliner Weisse that sizzled with tartness and big, juicy fruit. It was a combo that worked with a touch of genius.
2) Dry Dock Whiskey Barrel-Aged Double Hazlenut Brown Ale
Dry Dock's introduction of a series of barrel-aged big beers at the start of 2015 was the herald of what already one of the state's best breweries turning a corner toward a whole new level. In this effort especially, the barrel didn't assault your taste buds; it blended remarkably with the muted alcohol and stunning malty sweetness of the beer to take a complex experience and make it more pleasing.
1) Strange Craft Beer/Copper Kettle Brewing Basil Kriek Blonde
Collaboration Fest ranked as one of the best beer festivals of 2015, largely because of the wide variety of experiments that worked so well. But the one that soared above the rest - and continued to strike wonder as Strange and Copper Kettle served it throughout the year was this combination of Strange's Cherry Kriek and Copper Kettle's Basil Blonde. Two beers that are laud-worthy in their own right took seemingly clashing strong flavor profiles and turned them into a blended burst of fruit and spice with a soft blonde base beer that fortified it without overpowering it. It was a truly memorable effort from a truly memorable event that proved its mettle as more than a 2-ounce one-off creation.
First, I have to apologize to all of you — and yes, I mean both of you — who have been asking what's happened to my blog as of late. Between the Jan. 3 due date for my book and Jan. 16 due date for my second child, I've had to pull my attention elsewhere. But, hey, nothing gets a writer like me going quite like a deadline.
That said, 2015 as a whole was another year of experimentation by Colorado breweries but also a year of taking simple styles and just making them ridiculously good. And with that, you will see that the following list contains a little of both, with a complete rainbow of flavors that show once again how the biggest experiments can have some of the biggest payoffs.
10) Odd 13 Humulus Kalecumber
Few breweries took as giant a leap forward this year as this Lafayette beer maker, which dialed in on its sours and increased distribution in the metro area. But nothing was as shockingly tasty as this Berliner Weisse brewed with kale, cucumber and mint - tart and yet undefinable.
9) CaseyBrewing & Blending Saison
Troy Casey is building a cult following with the tart and fruit-infused beers he is putting together in Glenwood Springs. But his greatest feat was offering a clean and crisp saison that jumped to the top of its style in Colorado — and one that appeals to both edgier and more traditional palates.
8) Mockery Brewing Lapsang Souchong
This brewery tucked around the corner from Great Divide's Barrel Bar made its name in 2015 with beers that were made perfectly and had just a little twist. None was more satisfying that this smoked tea lager that was light-bodied but permeated the palate completely.
7) Ska Estival Cream Stout
Ska took your expectations and tossed them out the window twice with this masterpiece. First, it made its primary summer seasonal a stout — and one that was easy to drink even in the warmest weather. And then it added cream and orange zest and made a dark beer smooth and slightly fruity.
6) Avery Antonius' Carmen
The opening of Avery's destination brewery in Boulder County gave it more taps to dole out its growing barrel-aged collection. The biggest and best surprise of the year there was this dark sour ale aged in Madeira barrels, beautifully chewy and bright.
5) River North Third Anniversary Ale
A 17 percent saison designed to celebrate an anniversary of these Denver auteurs sounded at first like a gimmick that would backfire. On the contrary this was bold and sweet and shockingly smooth, and the alcohol was muted enough to make it both delicious and dangerous.4) Horse & Dragon Sad Panda Coffee Stout
The best thing to come out of the craft-beer mecca that is Fort Collins this year not only was introduced originally in 2014 but was made by one of the smallest and newest breweries in the city. Yet, this coffee stout with a hint of sweetness drank like one of the most perfect blends of big and accessible in Colorado, and the hope is that it gets more widespread distribution this year.
3) Ratio New Wave
Arguably the best new Colorado brewery of 2015 opened in Denver's RiNo neighborhood with a saison and a scotch ale that tasted like the works of seasoned veterans. But what announced Ratio's presence with authority was this summer-released strawberry Berliner Weisse that sizzled with tartness and big, juicy fruit. It was a combo that worked with a touch of genius.
2) Dry Dock Whiskey Barrel-Aged Double Hazlenut Brown Ale
Dry Dock's introduction of a series of barrel-aged big beers at the start of 2015 was the herald of what already one of the state's best breweries turning a corner toward a whole new level. In this effort especially, the barrel didn't assault your taste buds; it blended remarkably with the muted alcohol and stunning malty sweetness of the beer to take a complex experience and make it more pleasing.
1) Strange Craft Beer/Copper Kettle Brewing Basil Kriek Blonde
Collaboration Fest ranked as one of the best beer festivals of 2015, largely because of the wide variety of experiments that worked so well. But the one that soared above the rest - and continued to strike wonder as Strange and Copper Kettle served it throughout the year was this combination of Strange's Cherry Kriek and Copper Kettle's Basil Blonde. Two beers that are laud-worthy in their own right took seemingly clashing strong flavor profiles and turned them into a blended burst of fruit and spice with a soft blonde base beer that fortified it without overpowering it. It was a truly memorable effort from a truly memorable event that proved its mettle as more than a 2-ounce one-off creation.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Casey Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Horse and Dragon Brewing, Mockery Brewing, Odd 13 Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, River North Brewery, Ska Brewing, Strange Craft Beer
Thursday, September 17, 2015
What to Do During GABF Week 2015
The time has come again to put down your instruments of work, abandon your everyday life and prepare your taste buds for adventure. Yes, it's Great American Beer Festival week. And activities continue to multiply even faster than the breweries that are opening at a rate of more than one a week in Colorado.
Once again, I offer a summary of some of the highlight and can't-miss events leading up to and going around the four sessions of the GABF, which happens from Sept. 24-26 at the Colorado Convention Center. To get the rundown of absolutely everything that's on the calendar, I'd suggest you check out the good work being done by my friends at Porch Drinking, Brewtally Insane and Westword. But if you, like I, have a little less time to try to plan out a full week, let this serve as the 30,000-foot-level directory to the things you should consider hitting.
Without further ado, enjoy. And if you see me out at any of these places during the week, please say hi - and tell my wife and son back at home that I love them and will see them soon.
Friday, Sept. 18
5:15 p.m.: Denver Mayor Michael Hancock officially kicks off the 10-day celebration known as Denver Beer Fest at Factotum Brewhouse, with about 20 other brewers present. He promises to don his "brewing attire." Bring a camera.
Saturday, Sept. 19
* All day: Many bars will have tap takeovers throughout the week. But on the Saturday before the festival, I like to recommend the Thirsty Lion by Denver Union Station, as it's arguably the best sports bar in town to start. And for the next week, it is featuring six Odell beers.
* 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.: Flying into town for the event? Running today through Sept. 27, you don't even need to hop in a car before you start your beer journey. For $10, you get 10 2-oz. pours from your choice of 20 Colorado breweries right at Denver International Airport, ranging from Fate's easy-drinking Laimas Kolsch to Telluride's barrel-aged double IPA.
* 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.: Golden's Barrels and Bottles has carved a unique niche by serving its own beers and an outstanding cadre of outside beverages. Today, it turns two and celebrates with barreled and sour beers galore.
Sunday, Sept. 20
* 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.: The first specifically sour event of the increasing number is happening at Backcountry Pizza in Boulder. It promises 55 taps of sour beer of both the Belgian and American variety, some of which will be out before people finish lunch.
* 11 a.m.: Trinity Brewing of Colorado Springs starts a ridiculous week of events with a tapping of its Red Swingline wild ale raised on peaches and apricots. This precedes its Swingline horizontal tapping at noon Wednesday, its sour beer tapping at noon Thursday and its big beer tapping at noon Friday.
* 6 p.m.: Fiction Brewing of Denver taps its Sunny Boy Saison - a Brett saison brewed with rose hips - to launch a week of experimental tappings. Watch out too for a salted caramel wee heavy on Tuesday and a 100% Brett raspberry quad on Thursday.
Monday, Sept. 21
* 5 p.m.: The GABF kickoff party at Falling Rock Taphouse represents the unofficial shotgun start to the week. There will be vintage beers and beers made just for the occasion by local brewers. Just as fun, there will be a heck of a lot of brewers here.
* 6 p.m.: Those who live in Denver or may be flying in for the festival may not know that the city's south suburbs are going through a revolution in terms of craft beer. Living the Dream Brewing will be holding a bomber release party for its Bourbon Barrel Aged Helluva Caucasian Stout, and this may be a good time to check out it and its neighboring breweries.
* 7 p.m.: Freshcraft will kick off its week with a massive sour tapping. No, I don't have the exact list yet. But this is one of Denver's premiere beer bars, so expectations should be set very, very high.
Tuesday, Sept. 22
* All day: It takes some guts to open up your beer bar during GABF week. But that's exactly what Henry's Tavern, a Portland-based small chain promising 100 beers on tap, is doing in the old Virgin Megastore space in the Denver Pavilions after a few days of soft openings.
* 5 to 8 p.m.: Miss the Falling Rock party last night? Paramount Cafe is offering a slightly smaller one with 20 breweries expected but with a $15 cover charge that will get you access to good beers and good brewers wanting to talk about their beer.
* 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.: Want to really talk about beer? I will be moderating a panel discussion/debate at RiNo's Industry workspace about which European country has the best craft beer culture - Belgium, Germany or Italy. A suggested $20 donation gets you access to international beers plus locally made foreign-style ales from debate participants Grimm Bros. Brewhouse and Lost Highway Brewing. And I promise to keep this event, sponsored by the Belgian Consulate, lively.
Wednesday, Sept. 23
* 3 p.m: Those who live outside Denver may not realize that River North Brewery is one of the hidden gems of the city. This afternoon it offers up vertical tastings of its barrel-aged Avarice, a Russian imperial stout. And at noon Thursday, it will serve up its Quad five different ways, including four types of barrel aging.
*4:30 p.m.: Focus on the Beer has come up with one of the most unique annual events around the festival. Beers Made by Walking showcases libations made by brewers who were inspired to use wild ingredients they discovered on hikes. This year's showcase takes place at Our Mutual Friend, and tickets are $30.
* 6 to 10 p.m.: You should drink enough beer during GABF week to think everyone around you is funny. But Renegade Brewing teams with Sexpot Comedy to offer two hours of sampling beer, followed by two hours of brewers and brewery workers actually taking the stage and giving their best to be comedians. Tickets cost $45.
* 6:15 to 10 p.m.: Another great tradition is one put on by the folks at Crooked Stave Artisans. What the Funk? offers some 60 of the country's most experimental breweries dishing up their rarest and wildest offerings. VIP tickets are sold out, but regular-entrance passes can still be had for $90.
* 6:30 p.m.: The craft beer rock stars from Avery, Allagash, Dogfish Head, Lost Abbey and Russian River are teaming up to put on a five-course beer-pairing meal in the restaurant at the new Avery Brewing facility. At $125, it might be a bargain.
Thursday, Sept. 24
* 11 a.m.: Evil Twin Brewing has built a cult of followers around its variety of specialized and often wonderfully weird experiments like its Imperial Biscotti Break. Today it takes over every tap at World of Beer LoDo to show them off.
* 2 p.m.: Melvin Brewing of Jackson, Wyoming may make the best hoppy beers in America. Good luck trying to find them most of the time outside of the country's smallest state, however. Today, though, Falling Rock will be featuring them for an hour.
* 7 p.m. to midnight: Epic Brewing's 50 Firkin Fiasco is exactly what it seems - more than four dozen firkin barrels mixed with every ingredient the brewery can find to blend with its voluminous offerings. And the fiasco part? Well, many people do drop in after the GABF session ends.
*10 p.m.: Dogfish Head will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in style at Avanti Food & Beverage. Sam Calagione will break out 2006 vintages of 120 Minute IPA and Raison D'Extra, among other goodies, for the occasion.
* 10:30 p.m.: Avery's midnight breakfast at Euclid Hall is the stuff of legend after the first GABF session. It's $125, so, like the Brett Pack dinner, it's not for the light of wallet. But you will not leave hungry or thirsty.
Friday, Sept. 25
* Noon to 4 p.m.: Pints for Prostates puts on its annual Rare Beer Tasting at the McNichols Civic Center Building, offering 50 of the country's best breweries the chance to dust off long-forgotten beers from their cellars and pour them for charity. The event is sold out, however, so you'll need to find someone with tickets and kiss a lot of ass to get into this one.
* 1 to 4 p.m.: Ratio Beerworks (with its owners shown above) is considered by many (including me) to be the best new Denver brewery of 2015. It will be busy all week in its River North taproom. But today, it does a special tap takeover just a few miles away at Avanti Food and Beverage that will show off its range.
* 2 p.m.: Colorado Plus offers the largest selection of only-Colorado beers in the area. And today it will put on the "Co-loveration Saisonation," a celebration of saison collaborations led by Trinity Brewing, in its Wheat Ridge brewpub.
* 3 to 9 p.m.: Denver Beer Co. once again hosts its Collaboration Celebration, offering up beers that it made with five breweries stretching from Montana to Michigan to upstate New York. The block is closed down, so the atmosphere should be lively.
* 10:30 p.m.: By the time Friday night rolls around, a lot of people will start to wind down their weeks with mellower but still beer-laden after parties. Left Hand Brewing and Fremont Brewing of Washington will host just such a gathering at Monkey Barrel.
Saturday, Sept. 26
* 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m: Need to get out of Denver at this point? Oskar Blues is offering excursions up to its facilities in Lyons and Longmont by bus on Wednesday and Friday too. But today's field trip - which features stops at both the Lyons and Longmont breweries, as well as the CyclHOPS Cantina and Homemade Liquids & Solids restaurant, may be the crown jewel for $100.
* Noon: Did you know that Upslope Brewing has become one of the 10 largest craft breweries in Colorado? Its tap takeover at Hops & Pie will give you a chance to experience an often-overlooked brewery at a west-of-downtown gem of a beer bar/pizza joint.
* 5 p.m.: Speaking of harder-to-find gems, Casey Brewing and Blending (that's Troy Casey pouring for me in the below picture) will be pouring its exquisite saisons at Falling Rock Taphouse. Faced with the choice between hitting the Saturday-night GABF session or coming to this, skip the GABF in a heartbeat.
Sunday, Sept. 27
* If you still have any taste buds left, you're among the lucky ones. But there are a couple of brunches and recovery parties across town that are worth checking out. Among the two best-looking: A special menu at Brazen with River North at 10 a.m. for $30 and a general recovery effort at 11 a.m. at Avanti, which features seven restaurants to help you claw back into normal life.
The time has come again to put down your instruments of work, abandon your everyday life and prepare your taste buds for adventure. Yes, it's Great American Beer Festival week. And activities continue to multiply even faster than the breweries that are opening at a rate of more than one a week in Colorado.
Once again, I offer a summary of some of the highlight and can't-miss events leading up to and going around the four sessions of the GABF, which happens from Sept. 24-26 at the Colorado Convention Center. To get the rundown of absolutely everything that's on the calendar, I'd suggest you check out the good work being done by my friends at Porch Drinking, Brewtally Insane and Westword. But if you, like I, have a little less time to try to plan out a full week, let this serve as the 30,000-foot-level directory to the things you should consider hitting.
Without further ado, enjoy. And if you see me out at any of these places during the week, please say hi - and tell my wife and son back at home that I love them and will see them soon.
Friday, Sept. 18
5:15 p.m.: Denver Mayor Michael Hancock officially kicks off the 10-day celebration known as Denver Beer Fest at Factotum Brewhouse, with about 20 other brewers present. He promises to don his "brewing attire." Bring a camera.
Saturday, Sept. 19
* All day: Many bars will have tap takeovers throughout the week. But on the Saturday before the festival, I like to recommend the Thirsty Lion by Denver Union Station, as it's arguably the best sports bar in town to start. And for the next week, it is featuring six Odell beers.* 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.: Flying into town for the event? Running today through Sept. 27, you don't even need to hop in a car before you start your beer journey. For $10, you get 10 2-oz. pours from your choice of 20 Colorado breweries right at Denver International Airport, ranging from Fate's easy-drinking Laimas Kolsch to Telluride's barrel-aged double IPA.
* 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.: Golden's Barrels and Bottles has carved a unique niche by serving its own beers and an outstanding cadre of outside beverages. Today, it turns two and celebrates with barreled and sour beers galore.
Sunday, Sept. 20
* 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.: The first specifically sour event of the increasing number is happening at Backcountry Pizza in Boulder. It promises 55 taps of sour beer of both the Belgian and American variety, some of which will be out before people finish lunch.
* 11 a.m.: Trinity Brewing of Colorado Springs starts a ridiculous week of events with a tapping of its Red Swingline wild ale raised on peaches and apricots. This precedes its Swingline horizontal tapping at noon Wednesday, its sour beer tapping at noon Thursday and its big beer tapping at noon Friday.
* 6 p.m.: Fiction Brewing of Denver taps its Sunny Boy Saison - a Brett saison brewed with rose hips - to launch a week of experimental tappings. Watch out too for a salted caramel wee heavy on Tuesday and a 100% Brett raspberry quad on Thursday.
Monday, Sept. 21
* 5 p.m.: The GABF kickoff party at Falling Rock Taphouse represents the unofficial shotgun start to the week. There will be vintage beers and beers made just for the occasion by local brewers. Just as fun, there will be a heck of a lot of brewers here.* 6 p.m.: Those who live in Denver or may be flying in for the festival may not know that the city's south suburbs are going through a revolution in terms of craft beer. Living the Dream Brewing will be holding a bomber release party for its Bourbon Barrel Aged Helluva Caucasian Stout, and this may be a good time to check out it and its neighboring breweries.
* 7 p.m.: Freshcraft will kick off its week with a massive sour tapping. No, I don't have the exact list yet. But this is one of Denver's premiere beer bars, so expectations should be set very, very high.
Tuesday, Sept. 22
* All day: It takes some guts to open up your beer bar during GABF week. But that's exactly what Henry's Tavern, a Portland-based small chain promising 100 beers on tap, is doing in the old Virgin Megastore space in the Denver Pavilions after a few days of soft openings.
* 5 to 8 p.m.: Miss the Falling Rock party last night? Paramount Cafe is offering a slightly smaller one with 20 breweries expected but with a $15 cover charge that will get you access to good beers and good brewers wanting to talk about their beer.
* 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.: Want to really talk about beer? I will be moderating a panel discussion/debate at RiNo's Industry workspace about which European country has the best craft beer culture - Belgium, Germany or Italy. A suggested $20 donation gets you access to international beers plus locally made foreign-style ales from debate participants Grimm Bros. Brewhouse and Lost Highway Brewing. And I promise to keep this event, sponsored by the Belgian Consulate, lively.
Wednesday, Sept. 23
* 3 p.m: Those who live outside Denver may not realize that River North Brewery is one of the hidden gems of the city. This afternoon it offers up vertical tastings of its barrel-aged Avarice, a Russian imperial stout. And at noon Thursday, it will serve up its Quad five different ways, including four types of barrel aging.
*4:30 p.m.: Focus on the Beer has come up with one of the most unique annual events around the festival. Beers Made by Walking showcases libations made by brewers who were inspired to use wild ingredients they discovered on hikes. This year's showcase takes place at Our Mutual Friend, and tickets are $30.
* 6 to 10 p.m.: You should drink enough beer during GABF week to think everyone around you is funny. But Renegade Brewing teams with Sexpot Comedy to offer two hours of sampling beer, followed by two hours of brewers and brewery workers actually taking the stage and giving their best to be comedians. Tickets cost $45.
* 6:30 p.m.: The craft beer rock stars from Avery, Allagash, Dogfish Head, Lost Abbey and Russian River are teaming up to put on a five-course beer-pairing meal in the restaurant at the new Avery Brewing facility. At $125, it might be a bargain.
Thursday, Sept. 24
* 11 a.m.: Evil Twin Brewing has built a cult of followers around its variety of specialized and often wonderfully weird experiments like its Imperial Biscotti Break. Today it takes over every tap at World of Beer LoDo to show them off.
* 2 p.m.: Melvin Brewing of Jackson, Wyoming may make the best hoppy beers in America. Good luck trying to find them most of the time outside of the country's smallest state, however. Today, though, Falling Rock will be featuring them for an hour.
* 7 p.m. to midnight: Epic Brewing's 50 Firkin Fiasco is exactly what it seems - more than four dozen firkin barrels mixed with every ingredient the brewery can find to blend with its voluminous offerings. And the fiasco part? Well, many people do drop in after the GABF session ends.
*10 p.m.: Dogfish Head will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in style at Avanti Food & Beverage. Sam Calagione will break out 2006 vintages of 120 Minute IPA and Raison D'Extra, among other goodies, for the occasion.
* 10:30 p.m.: Avery's midnight breakfast at Euclid Hall is the stuff of legend after the first GABF session. It's $125, so, like the Brett Pack dinner, it's not for the light of wallet. But you will not leave hungry or thirsty.
Friday, Sept. 25
* Noon to 4 p.m.: Pints for Prostates puts on its annual Rare Beer Tasting at the McNichols Civic Center Building, offering 50 of the country's best breweries the chance to dust off long-forgotten beers from their cellars and pour them for charity. The event is sold out, however, so you'll need to find someone with tickets and kiss a lot of ass to get into this one.
* 2 p.m.: Colorado Plus offers the largest selection of only-Colorado beers in the area. And today it will put on the "Co-loveration Saisonation," a celebration of saison collaborations led by Trinity Brewing, in its Wheat Ridge brewpub.
* 3 to 9 p.m.: Denver Beer Co. once again hosts its Collaboration Celebration, offering up beers that it made with five breweries stretching from Montana to Michigan to upstate New York. The block is closed down, so the atmosphere should be lively.
* 10:30 p.m.: By the time Friday night rolls around, a lot of people will start to wind down their weeks with mellower but still beer-laden after parties. Left Hand Brewing and Fremont Brewing of Washington will host just such a gathering at Monkey Barrel.
Saturday, Sept. 26
* 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m: Need to get out of Denver at this point? Oskar Blues is offering excursions up to its facilities in Lyons and Longmont by bus on Wednesday and Friday too. But today's field trip - which features stops at both the Lyons and Longmont breweries, as well as the CyclHOPS Cantina and Homemade Liquids & Solids restaurant, may be the crown jewel for $100.
* Noon: Did you know that Upslope Brewing has become one of the 10 largest craft breweries in Colorado? Its tap takeover at Hops & Pie will give you a chance to experience an often-overlooked brewery at a west-of-downtown gem of a beer bar/pizza joint.
* 5 p.m.: Speaking of harder-to-find gems, Casey Brewing and Blending (that's Troy Casey pouring for me in the below picture) will be pouring its exquisite saisons at Falling Rock Taphouse. Faced with the choice between hitting the Saturday-night GABF session or coming to this, skip the GABF in a heartbeat.
Sunday, Sept. 27
* If you still have any taste buds left, you're among the lucky ones. But there are a couple of brunches and recovery parties across town that are worth checking out. Among the two best-looking: A special menu at Brazen with River North at 10 a.m. for $30 and a general recovery effort at 11 a.m. at Avanti, which features seven restaurants to help you claw back into normal life.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Barrels and Bottles, Denver Beer Co, Epic Brewing, Factotum Brewhouse, Fiction Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Oskar Blues, Ratio Beerworks, River North Brewery, Trinity Brewing
