Sunday, October 14, 2012
Colorado Kicks A** Again at the GABF
If you would have said before the Great American Beer Festival that Great Divide, Odell, Oskar Blues and Bristol would nab zero medals this year, I would have figured the rest of the U.S. had caught up to Colorado.
As it turns out, the state's just so good at making beer these days that the rest of its breweries are catching up on the seasoned experts.
Twenty-eight Centennial State breweries walked away with 35 medals at yesterday's ceremony - a total second only to California's (49) and well ahead of third-place Oregon (24). And Funkwerks scored the biggest prize of any of the locals, hoisting the trophy as Small Brewery of the Year.
No brewery had more than two individual medals, and the seven that did spanned the spectrum: Dry Dock, Funkwerks, New Belgium, Rock Bottom Westminster, SandLot, Tommyknocker and Twisted Pine. Some of the medal winners, such as Avery's White Rascal, are at this point considered classics; others, such as Keystone Light, are not.
But if you want to set up a tasting checklist for the next year, all the winners are listed in a story I wrote for my day job at the Denver Business Journal that includes good anecdotes about a few of the beers, including a gold-medalist from the crew at Equinox Brewing (pictured above). Check it out as soon as your liver recovers from this past weekend.
If you would have said before the Great American Beer Festival that Great Divide, Odell, Oskar Blues and Bristol would nab zero medals this year, I would have figured the rest of the U.S. had caught up to Colorado.
As it turns out, the state's just so good at making beer these days that the rest of its breweries are catching up on the seasoned experts.
Twenty-eight Centennial State breweries walked away with 35 medals at yesterday's ceremony - a total second only to California's (49) and well ahead of third-place Oregon (24). And Funkwerks scored the biggest prize of any of the locals, hoisting the trophy as Small Brewery of the Year.
No brewery had more than two individual medals, and the seven that did spanned the spectrum: Dry Dock, Funkwerks, New Belgium, Rock Bottom Westminster, SandLot, Tommyknocker and Twisted Pine. Some of the medal winners, such as Avery's White Rascal, are at this point considered classics; others, such as Keystone Light, are not.
But if you want to set up a tasting checklist for the next year, all the winners are listed in a story I wrote for my day job at the Denver Business Journal that includes good anecdotes about a few of the beers, including a gold-medalist from the crew at Equinox Brewing (pictured above). Check it out as soon as your liver recovers from this past weekend.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Equinox Brewing, Funkwerks, Great American Beer Festival, New Belgium Brewing, Rock Bottom Brewery, SandLot Brewery, Tommyknocker Brewery, Twisted Pine Brewing
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Blue Moon Meets Bold Flavor
Maybe you too have stood at the Blue Moon booth at the Great American Beer Festival, sipping bold and creative beers that have never been bottled and thinking: "Seriously, when are they going to sell these?"
I had thought the answer would be never. The good news is: I was wrong.
The Coors affiliate shocked a lot of people by tapping a Farmhouse Red (pictured above) at the SandLot Brewery that it operates for the Rockies' opening home game this year. Though its primary flavor is more reminiscent of a hibiscus Sweet Tart than a traditional Belgian sour, it quickly became the best beer you could find at Coors Field - and the company was selling it in stores a month later.
But just wait until you see what is coming next. I got a chance to sample the creations of Blue Moon founder Keith Villa and SandLot brewmaster John Legnard while working on a story for the Denver Business Journal that runs Friday, and some were shockingly good.
In August, the company will release a reboot of its seasonal pumpkin ale that takes a bland, stale beer and infuses it with fairly heavy and exciting notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. At the same time, it will release a Caramel Apple Spice beer that's been tested across the country; this one' s a bit lighter on both of its main attribute flavors, but it gets points for effort.
Not set for any release yet - but ripe for beer drinkers begging the company to put it out - is an IPA/double IPA hybrid brewed with juniper berries that greets your palate with deliciously fruity hops and a scent of peach. That was the best of the backroom offerings that the company is toying with, though a 9% ABV cherry imperial wheat that brewers have served at a couple of beer festivals already was not short on a malt-heavy, fruit-tinged taste that would make you do a double-take on its brewer.
Nor was it disappointing to taste a chocolate bacon porter that Villa and Legnard have been toying with - a beer in which all of the aforementioned tastes are subtle but offer more combined than a typical smoked dark ale.
And anyone who's stood in the aforementioned GABF lines might also ask: So, where's the thick, fascinating Peanut Butter Ale that people actually queue up to try (even if putting down a pint might seem a stretch). Villa says that one's nowhere near releasable, but at least he's working to get it ready for the big annual tasting.
Blue Moon Belgian White was a bold beer when released in 1995. But to a fair number of connoisseurs, it seemed that the creativity that was exhibited in that wasn't allowed out of the bottle in subsequent years at Blue Moon.
That restraint is being pulled back by parent company MillerCoors now. And just seeing what the brewmasters are toying with is enough reason to sit through a few more Rockies games this summer, if only to discover what Brewmaster's Choice might pop up next at the SandLot.
Maybe you too have stood at the Blue Moon booth at the Great American Beer Festival, sipping bold and creative beers that have never been bottled and thinking: "Seriously, when are they going to sell these?"
I had thought the answer would be never. The good news is: I was wrong.
The Coors affiliate shocked a lot of people by tapping a Farmhouse Red (pictured above) at the SandLot Brewery that it operates for the Rockies' opening home game this year. Though its primary flavor is more reminiscent of a hibiscus Sweet Tart than a traditional Belgian sour, it quickly became the best beer you could find at Coors Field - and the company was selling it in stores a month later.
But just wait until you see what is coming next. I got a chance to sample the creations of Blue Moon founder Keith Villa and SandLot brewmaster John Legnard while working on a story for the Denver Business Journal that runs Friday, and some were shockingly good.
In August, the company will release a reboot of its seasonal pumpkin ale that takes a bland, stale beer and infuses it with fairly heavy and exciting notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. At the same time, it will release a Caramel Apple Spice beer that's been tested across the country; this one' s a bit lighter on both of its main attribute flavors, but it gets points for effort.
Not set for any release yet - but ripe for beer drinkers begging the company to put it out - is an IPA/double IPA hybrid brewed with juniper berries that greets your palate with deliciously fruity hops and a scent of peach. That was the best of the backroom offerings that the company is toying with, though a 9% ABV cherry imperial wheat that brewers have served at a couple of beer festivals already was not short on a malt-heavy, fruit-tinged taste that would make you do a double-take on its brewer.
Nor was it disappointing to taste a chocolate bacon porter that Villa and Legnard have been toying with - a beer in which all of the aforementioned tastes are subtle but offer more combined than a typical smoked dark ale.
And anyone who's stood in the aforementioned GABF lines might also ask: So, where's the thick, fascinating Peanut Butter Ale that people actually queue up to try (even if putting down a pint might seem a stretch). Villa says that one's nowhere near releasable, but at least he's working to get it ready for the big annual tasting.
Blue Moon Belgian White was a bold beer when released in 1995. But to a fair number of connoisseurs, it seemed that the creativity that was exhibited in that wasn't allowed out of the bottle in subsequent years at Blue Moon.
That restraint is being pulled back by parent company MillerCoors now. And just seeing what the brewmasters are toying with is enough reason to sit through a few more Rockies games this summer, if only to discover what Brewmaster's Choice might pop up next at the SandLot.
Labels: Blue Moon Brewing, SandLot Brewery
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Smoky Side of AleIt started with Liquid Bacon, the mouth-watering, mesquite chewy smoked copper ale from Hunter Beer Co. at the edge of Australia's Hunter Valley wine region that lived up to its name when I first tried it in 2009. Then it moved to the smoked bock that the SandLot Brewery served the next summer, not as full of barbecuey goodness but still packed with smoke in a lighter-bodied beer.
Now, the welcoming club of smoked beers that aren't porters has a new member in the William Wallace Scotch Ale being poured down at Denver Beer Co. And it is every bit as chew-worthy - and, according to its brewer, as polarizing - as the other beers that have come from this style.
The smoked porter, popularized by Alaskan Brewing, is, at this point, a semi-common option for most breweries. The dark malt cloaks the smoke and makes it perceptible only as an add-on rather than a main flavoring, giving just a hint of spiciness to the common murky character of the style.
But lighter-bodies beers that have a flavor of smoke to them are riskier, as the smoke stands out far more prominently. And there you walk a think line between brews that taste like the liquid equivalent of a sumptuous rack of ribs and beers that taste like a fire fighter's uniform was substituted for hops as a late-boil addition.
William Wallace (think: "Follow me ... to the BBQ pit!") comes at you with a giant mesquite smoked flavor from the first sip, swaddling it in sweet Scottish malts but clearly letting it be the star of the show. As the beer warms, the sweet and the charred intermingle more, giving you a mouth-filling taste of such magnitude that even the brewery's GABF-award-winning Graham Cracker Porter can't match.
William Wallace (think: "Follow me ... to the BBQ pit!") comes at you with a giant mesquite smoked flavor from the first sip, swaddling it in sweet Scottish malts but clearly letting it be the star of the show. As the beer warms, the sweet and the charred intermingle more, giving you a mouth-filling taste of such magnitude that even the brewery's GABF-award-winning Graham Cracker Porter can't match.
Brewer Charlie Berger stopped by the table to take my compliment on the beer but then mention that it might be the most polarizing beer that the 5-month-old brewery has concocted. (The comment seemed especially appropriate as The Beer Geekette, a Scotch ale fan, passed it off to me to drink because she couldn't take the smoke.) Yet, Charlie should take that as a compliment.
When you make a beer this heavy in flavor, some people are naturally going to turn away, asking for something that is plainly easier. Yet, I hope more breweries get the gumption to infuse mesquite smoke - or other flavors we as a beer community haven't yet thought of - to continually challenge our taste buds.
Labels: Alaskan Brewing, Australian beer, Denver Beer Co, SandLot Brewery
