Friday, April 08, 2016
How do beer bar chains blend with the Denver scene?
It was both somewhat surprising and slightly predictable to learn in February that World of Beer had shuttered its downtown Denver location after just 18 months.
There was surprise because the location offered more than 50 beers on tap, including an array of impressive local and national offerings and had the on-the-surface credibility of some of the better beer bars in the crowded LoDo scene. Its Sunday BEERunch (pictured below) had a tasty menu extending from breakfast classics to tasty chipotle porter wings.
But World of Beer, which still operates locations in Cherry Creek and Lakewood, also carried in its description a series of words that can spell death to craft-beer enthusiasts — "out-of-state chain." And while I visited the location occasionally until its demise, I also noticed that the crowds never appeared there the way they did at places like Freshcraft or Lucky Pie or Falling Rock Tap House.
It's worth noting that chains were some of America's original craft-beer bars, including the Colorado-based Old Chicago chain that opened its doors in 1976, the same year that the first beers rolled off the lines at New Albion Brewery. But in today's farm-to-pint, uber-local beer-drinking society, it's also worth asking what the place of chains is here in the Napa Valley of craft beer.
One way to do that is to look at two other chains that remain downtown and seem to be thriving, at least by the size of the crowds I encountered there in the past two weeks.
The California-based Yard House chain actually was one of the early beer bars in downtown, finding its way into Denver around the time that Freshcraft and Euclid Hall were opening. At 120 distinct taps of beer, it actually has more flowing from kegs than even Falling Rock, though no one has ever confused the two businesses.
Yard House has suffered rightly from those who take a cursory look at its beer list and note the number of macro beers and "crafty" macro-owned breweries that inhabit its taps - a far higher percentage of its lineup than those previously mentioned beer bars. But at the end of March, it rolled out 25 new beers at the 16th Street Mall location, and they showed its commitment to quality.
Dry Dock, Crooked Stave, Grimm Brothers and Odell's sour series found a permanent place on the tap list. Bigger national craft breweries like Rogue were on there too, but with offerings like its coffee/IPA-hybrid Cold Brew that you can't find everywhere else. And Yard House folks found a few gems, like the flowery and grapefruity Almanac IPA, that would have a proud place in any locally owned beer bar.
Yes, faux-craft breweries like Elysian and Kona still have quite a few taps on the Yard House list. But, despite its corporate nature, one can't walk into the bar anymore and not be able to find enough palate-pleasing originals to keep you busy for the full happy hour.
Two blocks down from Yard House is Henry's Tavern, a Portland-based concept that opened in the Denver Pavilions just before Great American Beer Festival last year. It brandishes a tap list of 100 offerings, including some new-to-market goodies like La Cumbre (the New Mexico brewer that's one of the country's up-and-coming IPA makers) and some atypical locals like Left Hand's Great Juju.
Henry's adds the bonus of a fairly impressive upscale beer-bar menu, featuring goodies like accessible sushi and Gorgonzola fries. And it's got a nice patio, which I discovered yesterday because a friend and I couldn't find a seat inside the bar.
Again, there is more of a splash of corporate beer on the menu than you'd ever find at a place like Star Bar or Hops 'n Pie. But it's clear the owners support more than just the 50 largest craft breweries also and are willing to pick up locals, like Comrade Brewing.
So, yes, it's still OK to prefer the locals. They support even more of the small and rising craft breweries, and keeping 100 percent of the money within the community can do nothing but help the craft beer scene grow.
But at this point, it at least is worth acknowledging that some of these out-of-state chains are making more of an effort to resemble the tap lists of the local joints. And that too is a win for the local beer scene, as we all appear to be Denver-fying the national chains and making them realize how important it is to know your crowd.
It was both somewhat surprising and slightly predictable to learn in February that World of Beer had shuttered its downtown Denver location after just 18 months.
There was surprise because the location offered more than 50 beers on tap, including an array of impressive local and national offerings and had the on-the-surface credibility of some of the better beer bars in the crowded LoDo scene. Its Sunday BEERunch (pictured below) had a tasty menu extending from breakfast classics to tasty chipotle porter wings.
But World of Beer, which still operates locations in Cherry Creek and Lakewood, also carried in its description a series of words that can spell death to craft-beer enthusiasts — "out-of-state chain." And while I visited the location occasionally until its demise, I also noticed that the crowds never appeared there the way they did at places like Freshcraft or Lucky Pie or Falling Rock Tap House.
It's worth noting that chains were some of America's original craft-beer bars, including the Colorado-based Old Chicago chain that opened its doors in 1976, the same year that the first beers rolled off the lines at New Albion Brewery. But in today's farm-to-pint, uber-local beer-drinking society, it's also worth asking what the place of chains is here in the Napa Valley of craft beer.
One way to do that is to look at two other chains that remain downtown and seem to be thriving, at least by the size of the crowds I encountered there in the past two weeks.
The California-based Yard House chain actually was one of the early beer bars in downtown, finding its way into Denver around the time that Freshcraft and Euclid Hall were opening. At 120 distinct taps of beer, it actually has more flowing from kegs than even Falling Rock, though no one has ever confused the two businesses.
Yard House has suffered rightly from those who take a cursory look at its beer list and note the number of macro beers and "crafty" macro-owned breweries that inhabit its taps - a far higher percentage of its lineup than those previously mentioned beer bars. But at the end of March, it rolled out 25 new beers at the 16th Street Mall location, and they showed its commitment to quality.
Dry Dock, Crooked Stave, Grimm Brothers and Odell's sour series found a permanent place on the tap list. Bigger national craft breweries like Rogue were on there too, but with offerings like its coffee/IPA-hybrid Cold Brew that you can't find everywhere else. And Yard House folks found a few gems, like the flowery and grapefruity Almanac IPA, that would have a proud place in any locally owned beer bar.
Yes, faux-craft breweries like Elysian and Kona still have quite a few taps on the Yard House list. But, despite its corporate nature, one can't walk into the bar anymore and not be able to find enough palate-pleasing originals to keep you busy for the full happy hour.
Two blocks down from Yard House is Henry's Tavern, a Portland-based concept that opened in the Denver Pavilions just before Great American Beer Festival last year. It brandishes a tap list of 100 offerings, including some new-to-market goodies like La Cumbre (the New Mexico brewer that's one of the country's up-and-coming IPA makers) and some atypical locals like Left Hand's Great Juju.
Henry's adds the bonus of a fairly impressive upscale beer-bar menu, featuring goodies like accessible sushi and Gorgonzola fries. And it's got a nice patio, which I discovered yesterday because a friend and I couldn't find a seat inside the bar.Again, there is more of a splash of corporate beer on the menu than you'd ever find at a place like Star Bar or Hops 'n Pie. But it's clear the owners support more than just the 50 largest craft breweries also and are willing to pick up locals, like Comrade Brewing.
So, yes, it's still OK to prefer the locals. They support even more of the small and rising craft breweries, and keeping 100 percent of the money within the community can do nothing but help the craft beer scene grow.
But at this point, it at least is worth acknowledging that some of these out-of-state chains are making more of an effort to resemble the tap lists of the local joints. And that too is a win for the local beer scene, as we all appear to be Denver-fying the national chains and making them realize how important it is to know your crowd.
Labels: Almanac Beer, beer bars, chains, Henry's Tavern, La Cumbre Brewing, Left Hand Brewing, Old Chicago, Rogue Ales, World of Beer, Yard House
Saturday, February 07, 2015
The Art of the Sour Beer Festival
At a time when more people than ever are expanding their palates to enjoy sour beer, it's only natural that a niche sector is emerging for beer festivals dedicated to this once fringe art. But that doesn't mean that all of these celebrations of wild yeast and funky taste leave your palate in the same state.
Take, for example, New Belgium's now-annual celebration of its sour styles, the Lost in the Woods party, shown above. (The brewery is throwing a party at its location in Fort Collins tonight and then hosting a celebration in Denver tomorrow night at the Terminal Bar.)
Themed around its annual releases of its La Folie and its Transatlantique Kriek, the party is swimming in sour, from the new editions of the aforementioned beers to cellared versions of past efforts. (A 2007 La Folie served last year, for example, remained exquisitely tart with a slightly lighter body.) But in addition to just pouring beer, the brewery also offers a symposium detailing its souring efforts and has cellar-room officials both leading tours and pouring various concoctions not typically released to the public, giving attendees a sense of why this is all so experimental and important in today's beer world.
Less talk, more tasting, you say? Actually, this is not only educational, but in some ways needed. For a full night of tasting sour beer can wreak havoc on both tongue and tummy. And that can become apparent even at the most celebrated funk festivals in the state.
The annual "What the Funk" festival that runs parallel with the Great American Beer Festival (or the Craft Brewers Conference, when that was in Denver last year) is the biggest, boldest collection of wild-yeast and barrel-aged beers you can find. The beer geek can find themselves in a deliriously exuberant state as they bounce between Jester King's Cerveza de Tempranillo (a tart barrel-aged sour with Tempranillo wine grapes) and Wicked Weed's Amorous (a bold barrel-aged, dry-hopped sour IPA), as the Fearless Tasting Crew did last year.
But repeated doses of sour beers over a several-hour period can add up quickly; I, for one, found my stomach rumbling and myself looking for something "mild" by the end of the show. And while I couldn't stop talking about the myriad flavors I'd discovered the next day, I also found myself with a limited desire to drink anything more, even though it was in the midst of a brewers conference.
Pace, then, may be the key. And to that end, it is worth seeking out the smaller, site-specific sour fests that the best breweries and beer bars may offer.
Last year, for example, World of Beer Cherry Creek presented a one-day sour tasting featuring 19 different beers - not as many as you'll find at What the Funk or Avery's Sourfest, but more than you'll find in many decent liquor stores. We sampled offerings from the Bear Republic Tartare to the Green Flash Little Friek and left sated but not overburdened. Plus, had things just gotten too tart, there was an available menu of a couple of hundred other beers to us as well. It was a great day.
Truth is, it's had to go wrong with a sour festival. And the best news is that more and more are cropping up. But be warned that overindulging in even the best beers may leave you wishing for a mellow German lager for a few days afterward.
At a time when more people than ever are expanding their palates to enjoy sour beer, it's only natural that a niche sector is emerging for beer festivals dedicated to this once fringe art. But that doesn't mean that all of these celebrations of wild yeast and funky taste leave your palate in the same state.
Take, for example, New Belgium's now-annual celebration of its sour styles, the Lost in the Woods party, shown above. (The brewery is throwing a party at its location in Fort Collins tonight and then hosting a celebration in Denver tomorrow night at the Terminal Bar.)
Themed around its annual releases of its La Folie and its Transatlantique Kriek, the party is swimming in sour, from the new editions of the aforementioned beers to cellared versions of past efforts. (A 2007 La Folie served last year, for example, remained exquisitely tart with a slightly lighter body.) But in addition to just pouring beer, the brewery also offers a symposium detailing its souring efforts and has cellar-room officials both leading tours and pouring various concoctions not typically released to the public, giving attendees a sense of why this is all so experimental and important in today's beer world.
Less talk, more tasting, you say? Actually, this is not only educational, but in some ways needed. For a full night of tasting sour beer can wreak havoc on both tongue and tummy. And that can become apparent even at the most celebrated funk festivals in the state.
The annual "What the Funk" festival that runs parallel with the Great American Beer Festival (or the Craft Brewers Conference, when that was in Denver last year) is the biggest, boldest collection of wild-yeast and barrel-aged beers you can find. The beer geek can find themselves in a deliriously exuberant state as they bounce between Jester King's Cerveza de Tempranillo (a tart barrel-aged sour with Tempranillo wine grapes) and Wicked Weed's Amorous (a bold barrel-aged, dry-hopped sour IPA), as the Fearless Tasting Crew did last year.But repeated doses of sour beers over a several-hour period can add up quickly; I, for one, found my stomach rumbling and myself looking for something "mild" by the end of the show. And while I couldn't stop talking about the myriad flavors I'd discovered the next day, I also found myself with a limited desire to drink anything more, even though it was in the midst of a brewers conference.
Pace, then, may be the key. And to that end, it is worth seeking out the smaller, site-specific sour fests that the best breweries and beer bars may offer.
Last year, for example, World of Beer Cherry Creek presented a one-day sour tasting featuring 19 different beers - not as many as you'll find at What the Funk or Avery's Sourfest, but more than you'll find in many decent liquor stores. We sampled offerings from the Bear Republic Tartare to the Green Flash Little Friek and left sated but not overburdened. Plus, had things just gotten too tart, there was an available menu of a couple of hundred other beers to us as well. It was a great day.
Truth is, it's had to go wrong with a sour festival. And the best news is that more and more are cropping up. But be warned that overindulging in even the best beers may leave you wishing for a mellow German lager for a few days afterward.
Labels: Festivals, New Belgium Brewing, sour Belgian, What the Funk, World of Beer
