Beer Run Blog

The 12 Beers of Christmas 2020

Lockdown has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to beer exploration. On the down side is the lack of seasonal beer festivals (a.k.a. Denver Beer Festivus) that allowed one to explore many Christmas creations in one fell swoop. On the plus side, however, is the fact that little this year is getting in the way of drinking multiple beers every night in the name of, um, journalism.

So, after a month of diving into as many seasonal offerings as could be scrounged, here is one drinker's guide to 12 Beers of Christmas this year, both from Colorado and from afar, that can help you get through the rest of this year in merry shape. Good beers to all, and to all a good night!

12) Shiner Holiday Cheer

This is the "wait, do I like this?" beer of the season - a dunkelweizen swimming in the flavor of Texas peaches that looks more like a dark champagne than a holiday ale. The fruit is so dominant here, and the beer is acutely sweet. But you won't forget it. And you'll realize there's some real talent behind this.

11) Briar Common Amnesia

Released just on Dec. 19, this is a bold concept - a 13% ABV wood-aged imperial stout brewed with tart cherries - that right now tastes a bit premature, with the thick body taking on more of a port wine characteristic than the feel of a stout. But pick up two and cellar one for six months, as this just feels like a budding masterpiece that can grow very well into its own complexity.

10) Avery Old Jubilation

An 8.3% ABV English-style old ale with a boozy enough feel to be mistaken for a light barleywine, this is truly a winter warmer. This is not an easy sipper, but it is multi-faceted and its blend of four malts makes this one of Avery's least hop-forward classic offerings.

9) Sierra Nevada Celebration

The California craft-beer pioneer long has swerved from the norm by dropping its fresh-hopped IPA as its Christmastime entry. And its Northwest hop profile and amber-brown body make this feel very old school. Still, that doesn't change the fact that it is simple and well-made.

8) Odell Isolation Ale

Much like Celebration, this straddles the "almost too familiar" line but then reminds you why Odell Brewing hasn't messed with the recipe. A malty ale in which neither the malts nor the hops are overbearing, it is plan and simple a perfectly enjoyable easy drinker. And that deserves honoring.

7) Strange Craft Beer Gingerbread Man

The American-style brown ale body almost felt a little lighter this year than in years past. But the spicing here is spot on: Ginger mixed with stabilizing malts in a way that truly approximates a cookie in not-overbearing beer form. This is the beer you bring to the Christmas party (whenever those resume) and have everyone smile with appreciation.

6) N'ice Chouffe

A big body that lays out this 10% ABV Belgian dark ale brewed with spices is even more impressive for its lack of alcohol burn. With its thick head, impenetrably dark body and lingering aftertaste, this annual treat from Belgium's Achouffe Brewery makes a bold statement. Be sure to share it with friends.

5) Westfax Cranberry and Sage Smoothie Sour

OK, technically the holiday this beer brings out is Thanksgiving. But the truth is, it's a phenomenal beer to sample with any elaborate dinner. The ruby red body shimmers like straight-out-of-the-can cranberry sauce, the hugely spiced nose calls to mind turkey stuffing and the tartness tones it down in a way that actually works miraculously well together. It may not be the beer you drink by the six-pack, but it's an impressive experiment from this Lakewood brewery that is worth seeking out and trying.

4) New Belgium Accumulation

The surprisingly long-lasting beer of this season is a light-bodied IPA with a late-breaking hop bite that presents such a cold crispness that it almost seems begging to be drunk in cooler climates. A slight hint of peppercorn adds to the unusual bitterness and makes it noteworthy.

3) Little Machine That's My Yam!

The full-bodied nature of this sweet potato stout lets you know that it's a serious beer, not a gimmick. But it's the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and vanilla beans used in the brewing that combine to give this a taste like an oddly cooling chai stout and make you think more and more about what's in here, even as you simply enjoy this.

2) Great Divide Hibernation Ale

Even in its 25th year of production, this English-style old ale feels surprisingly fresh and relevant. Its body touches the edges of being both woody and smoky but doesn't settle into either of those characteristics. It's all malt, but with a sweet and slightly boozy aspect that makes this incredibly approachable. It doesn't rely on any of the typical Christmas-beer trappings but feels like a slope-side cabin fire in liquid form. It's brewed to a style but remains indefinable. It's just great.

1) Upslope Wild Christmas Ale

These Boulder auteurs have produced impressive versions of their typically tart Christmas ales for years now, but nothing has come close to the 2020 version. Aged in oak barrels with orange juice and orange peel with a Saigon cinnamon addition, this goes way beyond being a "sour" beer and kicks up the body with the cinnamon in such a smooth way that it seems it's what a generation of brewers have been looking to do with spice. The exotic flavor seems almost soothing in comparison to the bitterness, providing a hint of donut-esque sweetness that is a defining last taste to an already impressive complexity. It is a really, really unique effort.

Labels: Briar Common Brewery + Eatery, Great Divide, Little Machine Beer, New Belgium Brewing, Odell Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Strange Craft Beer, Upslope Brewing, Westfax Brewing

7 Beers for Celebrating Oktoberfest

The German Reinheitsgebot, that wretched old law liming all beer to just four ingredients and sucking all of the originality out of the brewing art for centuries, is just the kind of ridiculous government regulation that could make the tasting of multiple Oktoberfest beers a tedious job. And certainly, two weeks of drinking largely classical marzens — almost all of which were named "Oktoberfest" — was, in some ways, an exercise in differentiating caramel malts.

But the level of quality that is going into producing such beers these days is evident in how many of them pull out subtle flavors that leave big impressions and make the drinking experience both an easy and delightful one. And while the number of brewers producing Oktoberfest seasonals is limited — let's face it, this centuries-old style can't compete with hard seltzers for mass appeal — those brewers both inside and outside Colorado have come up with a few gems worth lifting in your stein if you join in any of the holiday celebrations planned for this weekend.

The best on the market: Seedstock Oktoberfest is a classical offering with a nose and taste of slightly toasted bread and a peripheral sweetness that is balanced out perfectly by the presence of hops that add crispness to the body without any Americanized tastes. It is both refreshing and filling in a way that presents its flavor in perfect balance.

The most joyfully traditional: Odell Oktoberfest has everything you hope for in a beer accompanying your brat: slightly toasted malts with a pillow of caramel at the bottom, no booze, no burn and just enough lingering carbonation to give it pizzazz without distracting from the flavor. It's pure without an aftertaste, and it's eminently drinkable despite a 6.1% ABV level that's a little higher than most.

The one with the kick at the end: Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest surprises you with an underlying peppery flavor that is assertive in ways you didn't expect. But it's a very good kick to the body of two-row pale, Munich and Vienna malts, and you remember this beer long after it's gone - and want to come back for more of it.

The one with extra sweetness: New Image No-Toberfest (named after the lack of celebrations in this pandemic year) goes its own way, like most of this Arvada brewery's creations. It's all in with a sweeter, bigger body that is heightened by its extremely rich caramel nose. It's almost got a muscular quality compared to its marzen brethren, but in that buffness there are a lot of intriguing tastes.

For those wanting a touch of bitterness: Wibby Brewing Wibtoberfest has an intriguing bitterness in its malt, like the leftover burn from a roast that you don't see coming. The body is very easy, but the bite gives it staying power and makes it just a bit more interesting. You might not think this a remarkable beer, but it is pleasurable.

For those wanting a big dose of subtlety: Bierstadt Lagerhaus Oktoberfest could be described as both an easy and full sipper. There are Nutella-like overtones of tamed-down sweetness, but there is less residual malt taste on the back end here than in any other offering in this list. This one isn't likely to leave you gushing, like the brewery's Slow Pour Pils. But it is likely that you could down three of these without thinking twice.

For those who don't want alcohol: Athletic Brewing Oktoberfest tastes much lighter in flavor and body than any marzen with booze in it, and that is jarring in an unsatisfying way the first time you try it. But for those who don't want alcohol, this is actually a refreshing option. And upon repeated tastes, you can find the underlying flavor, even if this lacks the crispness of other offerings on this list.

Labels: Athletic Brewing, Bierstadt Lagerhaus, New Image Brewing, Odell Brewing, Oktoberfest, Seasonal, Seedstock Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Wibby Brewing

7 Beers That Got Me Through Lockdown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denver's Beer Restaurant Scene is Going Through an Evolution

Denver has its breweries and it has its beer bars, as the world knows while it descends upon the Great American Beer Festival this week. But an under-appreciated part of the scene the Mile High City is developing is its beer-themed restaurants - and few represent it as well as Former Saint.

Former Saint Craft Kitchen and Taps is located on the first floor of the Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center, not exactly a place where you might think beer culture might flourish. But the restaurant - named not for its latent soul but for its being the site of St. Mary's Academy, the first all-girls school in Colorado - was developed over a number of years with the theme of Colorado being front and center the entire time.

That's evident in the menu, heavy on state-produced meats and vegetables, from its bison burger to its buffalo steak. And it's evident in the 16-tap, all-Colorado beer list, which Dane Fiscella, the hotel's assistant food and beverage manager, works closely with his beverage guru to for the largely conventioneers' crowd that stays there.

Here you will find a range from local lagers to Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout. More importantly, you will find beers ranging from those produced by the state's largest craft brewer, New Belgium Brewing, to only-distributed-in-Denver artisans like Goldspot Brewing.

Fiscella, a veteran of the venerable Philadelphia beer scene, goes out on scouting trips often for local beers, and he thinks not of what will appeal to the masses but what will genuinely provoke customers' interests. The biggest seller the space has seen is not a light lager but Station 26 Brewing Juicy Banger, which Coloradans know as one of the best IPAs made in the Centennial State.

And when the beer isn't flowing through the copper pipes from the glass-walled taproom (pictured above) that draw so many questions, it is taking a supporting role on the menu. The restaurant's popular quail and waffles (pictured below) is slathered with a syrup made from Denver Beer Co's Graham Cracker Porter.

Certainly, there are places around downtown Denver that serve a larger and riskier portfolio of Colorado craft beers than Former Saint. But the eatery - which is hosting a Sierra Nevada pairing dinner on Wednesday and a number of tap takeovers throughout this week - is a prime example of how the Denver beer scene is starting to imbue itself in places well beyond the beer-geek haunts of yore, and it is well worth a stop on the way into or out of the Colorado Convention Center to see how craft beer and fine food have become allies rather than opposites , even in a corporate hotel setting.

"Our Colorado themed hyper-focus, it sets us apart from our competitors," Fiscella said recently. "When you're staying at a hotel, you're going on a trip. "If we can give you that sense in downtown Denver of adventure and of out-of-the-ordinary, that's what we want to do."

Labels: Denver Beer Co, Epic Brewing, Food pairing, Former Saint Craft Kitchen and Taps, Goldspot Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Station 26 Brewing

The Weight of Water - on Beer

Water is by far the largest ingredient in beer. But have you ever really thought about how it affects the taste of the beverage in front of you?

Nick Ison, barrel-aging program manager for Sierra Nevada Brewing, admitted that when it came to formulating recipes, malt, hops and yeast took up most of the space in his head. Then some friends in the brewing industry proposed a modest experiment: Make two of the same beers the same way, with just a variation in the way that the water is treated.

The results were enlightening. And they made for a fascinating, if wildly geeky, discussion at the opening seminar on Saturday morning this year at the Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival.

You see, it's the seemingly little chemical reactions in water that can have a big effect on the taste of that base ingredient that defines how the more-studied ingredients will affect it. PH levels, total hardness and alkalinity of water impact the acidity, the saltiness, even the metallic scent of a beer. There's a reason some brewers condition their water to match the H2O found in Burton-on-Trent, and it's not for kitsch value.

Of all the properties of water, maybe none are essential to taste as sulfide and chloride. Chloride imbues a malty characteristic on a beer, while sulfide can add the presence of salt. Balancing them is key to creating a drinkable offering.

For his experiment, Ison made a Sierra Nevada Saison, one version with chloride added and another version without it. The difference was fascinatingly clear: The effort with more chloride was bigger-bodied, with a minimal spicy yeast profile. Without the addition, it was softer, with little aftertaste.

Chad Yakobson of Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project made a similar comparison set - an NEIPA with a typical 1.5-to-1 chloride-to-sulfide ratio, and the same beer with the ratio reversed. The heavy sulfide edition was kickier, more bitter and frankly more adventurous. It was more aggressive, but there was a certain daring that you couldn't forget.

Matt Ruzsick, Sierra Nevada's North Carolina brewery manager, took the dare with a foreign export stout, adjusting only the chloride on one version and adjusting only the sulfide on the other. The taste differential was a little less obvious in these maltier beers, but the higher sulfide beer had some more carbonation, as well as an aftertaste that stuck around longer.

The only person who didn't make two discernibly different beers was Nile Zacherle (talking in the picture above), the founder of Napa's Mad Fritz Brewing who took the most daring route and made his Pale Lager with water sources that he, um, appropriated from two different springs in town. The malt overtook the effect of the water, he noted, surmising that the incoming water source is not as important as the treatment of the water once it all gets into the brewer's hands.

What does this mean? Largely, it means should give you pause to stop and think about what was done to the primary ingredient to the beer before any trendy hops, special yeast or perfectly roasted malt were added to it. These brewers do. And it just may make the difference between creating that beer you can't forget and the one you can't remember amidst all of your tasting.

Labels: Big Beers, Crooked Stave, Mad Fritz Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, water

Big Beers Has Become the Festival for the Beer Aficionados Who Truly Want to Learn


The Big Beers Belgians & Barleywines Festival has gone through some very noticeable changes in recent years (like moving from Vail to Breckenridge in 2017) and some very subtle ones. But it's those seemingly minor tweaks that this year have added up to making this officially the festival for people who don't just want to drink a lot of beer but who want to sponge up knowledge about the craft at the same rate their liver is processing alcohol.

That's not to say the nationally lauded annual event, now celebrating its 19th year from Jan. 10-12, hasn't always gone the extra yard to imbue knowledge upon its participants. It's always been marked by early-morning seminars on experimental brewing styles, multiple events pairing beer with food and cigars and brewers who are omnipresent at the commercial tasting to explain just how they incorporated an experimental yeast or ingredient.

But those seminars (pictured below) are getting more technical as they are getting more popular - a reason that organizers Laura and Bill Lodge decided for the first time this year to sell $15-$20 tickets to each of the gatherings, since the tracks grew so crowded last year that crowds couldn't fit into the rooms. And this year's slate of 12 talks goes to depths beyond even many of the great seminars in the past, including the start-of-the-morning gathering on Saturday in which Crooked Stave, Mad Fritz and Sierra Nevada delve into the impacts of water on beer by making the same brew with three different water sources.


Laura also wanted to take the welcome reception to a new level - this time without adding the cost of tickets to a beer-and-food pairing that had grown costly to the overall event. So, the 2019 reception (noon to 1 p.m. on Friday at Beaver Run Resort) upped its number of brewer participants to four serving two beers each and replaced the high-end pairings with a nacho bar, so that beer geeks have time to savor new flavors and talk to the men and women who create them.

"I really wanted to do a formal, you've-arrived entrance," Laura told me. "We're really looking to, I guess, polish it up."

To be sure, Big Beers didn't need much polishing. The commercial event alone puts this among the best beer festivals nationally, with the likes of Adam Avery or Sam Calagione pouring rarities and barrel-aged beauties and explaining their qualities to lines of people that stretch sometimes 10 long instead of the around-the-corner queues that can mark the best breweries at Great American Beer Festival.

But as more breweries have tried to get into the event - which, mindbogglingly, still has tickets available - more brewers have agreed to share their table with friends in order to increase the sheer variety of beers that are being poured. This year there will be more than 150 beer makers pouring beer at just 118 tables.

"It's a really great feeling to see the community coming together in that way," Laura said.

What's really begun to separate this festival from others in recent years is the affiliate events happening around Breckenridge as it occurs. Yes, those include special tappings and food pairings.

But there's also a workshop on Belgian beers, an educational discussion on hazy beers and informational pourings and tappings focused on fermentation, blending and randalls. Hell, there's even a special event on low-gravity beers, which is the equivalent of the NFL directing a seminar on the grace and beauty of soccer.

I'm not saying that you'll be so steeped in learning that you won't get drunk at Big Beers. You're at 9,600 feet above sea level, the first seminar on Saturday begins at 9 a.m. and you're drinking beers no less than 7 percent ABV, with the exception of a few lower-alcohol Belgian styles. You're going to feel it, even if the drunkenness is just a byproduct of your activities rather than a goal.

But this festival has gone well beyond a little bit of learning and a lot of beer. It's like an upper-level college course on what makes great beer as great as it is, with the benefits of your being able to taste every bit of that as you are steeping yourself in knowledge. And that's why it's become, in some ways, the absolute must-hit beer event of the year in Colorado.

Labels: Avery Brewing, Big Beers, Boston Beer Co., Breckenridge, Crooked Stave, Laura Lodge, Mad Fritz Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing

The 12 Beers of Christmas: Day 9

Labels: Holiday beers, Sierra Nevada Brewing

Torpedo = Taste Assault

Labels: Big Beers, Sierra Nevada Brewing