Taste the flickering light of fall before it’s gone

Oct. 12, 2012

Fall in the high country is winding down. A few breezy days have stripped most of the golden-orange leaves from the aspen trees, and the days and nights are getting cold enough for snowmaking at area resorts. But before we say goodbye to autumn and hello to ski season, let’s take one last fond look at some crisp fall beers. Like those aspen leaves, much of this season’s beer selection has been stripped from local liquor store shelves, but a few tempting brews are still clinging on and are worth grabbing up.

We know that cooling weather demands spicier beer with a clean finish for sun-spotted autumn days, but what else makes certain brews the perfect companions to this season?

“While we do choose seasonal ingredients for our fall beers, there is also a historical context for how these beers came to lend themselves to the fall season,” said Jennifer Glanville, brewer for Samuel Adams. “Traditional Oktoberfest beers, like Samuel Adams Octoberfest, are marzen-style lagers. The term marzen — German for the month of March — gets its name from the last month in which the beer was traditionally brewed.” 

Before refrigeration, Glanville said, March was the last month that beers could be “lagered,” or put into cold storage, to survive the warmer summer weather. 

“By doing this, the beers could age during the summer and be enjoyed around this time of the year for the annual fall harvest,” Glanville said.

>> Oktoberfest beers. 

Though not all brewed in the marzen style, lager Oktoberfest beers claim a large chunk of the fall brewing market. David Courtney, of Beaver Liquors, said a couple of favorites that can still be found at his store are the Santa Fe Brewing Oktoberfest, a lighter, lager-style, sessionable brew, and the New Belgium Red Hoptober, which is darker but also easy-drinking.

Hoptober has also been popular at Riverwalk Wine & Spirits in Edwards, said Tim Consadine, along with Beck’s Oktoberfest, another traditional marzen-style lager brewed in Germany. He said he’s also sold a lot of the aforementioned Samuel Adams Octoberfest.

“Our Octoberfest … blends together five roasts of malt to create a brew complete with sweet flavors, including caramel and toffee,” Glanville said of the Sam Adams incarnation. “The malty sweetness found in Octoberfest pairs well with some of my favorite fall dishes, such as bratwurst and roast pork.”

Mickey Werner, of Alpine Wine & Spirits, said the Sam Adams brew also has been a popular one at his shop, along with Left Hand’s Oktoberfest. Left Hand brews in the marzen style, starting in the spring and eating up two months to get the beer to its medium-bodied lagered finish.

“Oktoberfest beers have a deep red amber color that itself is characteristic of autumn and the color of the changing leaves, together with a rich malt complexity,” Glanville said.

>> Pumpkin beers. 

One of the great things about being a woman is that you can drink fruity beer without worrying what your friends will think or whether it will somehow ruin your masculinity. I’ll happily guzzle a framboise or a shandy alongside an IPA or a stout because, as they say, variety is the spice of life, and I want to grab it with both hands.

Consequently, pumpkin ales are my favorite fall style of beer. Brewed infrequently in limited batches, they disappear quickly. There are still a few six-packs of pumpkin brews to be had here and there around the valley, so stock up while you still can.

Consadine said Riverwalk is home to a diminishing supply of Tommyknocker Pumpkin Harvest Ale, brewed with a bit of molasses and spice, and Woodchuck’s Pumpkin Cider, a private-reserve selection that combines Woodchuck’s signature cider flavor with a pumpkin finish.

Also spotted around the valley this month were Dogfish Punkin Ale, which comes in at a higher price point and is packaged in a four-pack, and Uinta Punk’n Harvest Pumpkin Ale, one of my personal favorites. If you’re looking for something a little more main stream that’s a little less flavorful to ease you into this style of beer, try Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat or Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. Both of these beers dial down the pumpkin and spice ingredients, making for smooth, easy-swilling suds.

Finally, if you want to venture into the unknown recesses of fizzy pumpkin lore, loiter around the Fireside Bar at the Vail Cascade Resort and try to get your hands on some Avery Rumpkin, the crème de la crème of pumpkin beers. This monster of a pumpkin brew is finished in rum barrels and spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. I’d be willing to shoulder blue-haired ladies out of the way for a bottle of this stuff. To me, it captures that last bit of fall.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

A roadmap to the Great American Beer Festival

Oct. 5, 2012

Every fall, brewers pour into Denver by the hundreds to share their creations and see how their beers stack up against the competition. They bring old standbys and newly proffered progeny, hoping to spark the imaginations and taste buds of beer drinkers the world over. This cornucopia of autumn suds has been dubbed the Great American Beer Festival, and for the lucky few who managed to snag tickets before they sold out months ago, the fun starts Oct. 11. 

>> I’m one of the chosen ones. 

If you have your golden ticket in hand, you will be confronted with close to 400 breweries serving up in excess of 1,000 beers. Even the most Herculean effort won’t get all of those brews into your gut, but here are a few suggestions to make the most of your trip around Candyland.

For starters, when trying each beer, ask for a small sample. If it’s the greatest thing that ever passed your lips, you can always go back for more, but if it’s just OK, you will regret having taken up the extra space in your carbonation-bloated belly. Second, seek out the rare and elusive. Yes, your favorite beer will probably be there and you’ll want to score a few minutes talking to the brewer or rep about how much you love it, but what else is that brewery bringing to the table? Do they have something new or special that you’ve never tried before? Now is the time to be ahead of the curve and get your hands on it.

“I always cherish any opportunity I get to meet and speak with a fan of our beers or beer in general,” said Jennifer Glanville, brewer at Samuel Adams, in an email. “We’re all there to enjoy and celebrate craft beer and what it’s become today.”

Glanville said right now there are 21 times as many breweries in the U.S. as the mere 83 that existed when Jim Koch first brewed Boston Lager in his kitchen in 1984.

“Beer drinkers now appreciate craft beer in the same way they would a fine wine (i.e. smelling, tasting and pouring properly),” Glanville said. “They are expanding their palates and experimenting with the wide range of flavors that craft beer offers.”

The Boston crew will be showcasing the two consumer winners of the Samuel Adams LongShot American Homebrew Contest, and festival wanderers will have a chance to vote for a homebrew winner in the Sam Adams employee category. They’ll also be pouring their New Albion Ale at the festival.

“New Albion Ale was originally brewed 30 years ago by Jack McAuliffe, founder of The New Albion Brewing Co., a brewery that helped pave the way for other American craft breweries,” Glanville said. “This year, we worked with Jack to brew the beer, which is recognized by beer experts as the original American craft beer, and we’re really excited to share it at events and at our GABF booth to see what people think.”

Dick, Jake and John Leinenkugel will all be present at the festival, pouring the lighter side of the family — Lemon Berry Shandy, Sunset Wheat, Honey Weiss and Berry Weiss — as well as a few bolder options from their Big Eddy series, including an imperial IPA and the new Baltic Porter.

“If you talk to beer drinkers at the GABF, they like different beers that they can’t necessarily find out west or in Colorado,” John Leinenkugel said. “It’s interesting to see what people line up for. And a lot of it is for rare, limited-release beers, but our Berry Weiss always samples very well; we always go through all of it.”

The star of the Leine Lodge, if it’s ready in time, will be the brewery’s new Snow Drift Vanilla Porter, a lighter, sessionable beer that John Leinenkugel said the 145-year-old brewery is very proud of.

“We haven’t done a porter style of beer since before Prohibition,” John Leinenkugel said, and with the Snow Drift and the Baltic, they now have two.

Other important pinpoints on your path through nirvana fall among those breweries that don’t distribute in Colorado. It’s a bit of a tease, but you’ll be glad you endured the torture. On my short list is New Glarus Brewing Co., which only ships beer within its home state of Wisconsin. Many a road trip north in my college days included grabbing a few six-packs of beer from this cheese-state luminary.

Deb Carey, founder and president, said New Glarus would be sending a handful of brews for the public to test drive at GABF, including the medal-winning Raspberry Tart. This spontaneously fermented Belgian fruited sour brown ale is brewed with Oregon red raspberries.

“It’s like grabbing a handful of red raspberries and jamming them in your mouth,” Carey said.

Another medal winner is Enigma, a Belgian that’s aged for more than two years in oak tanks that sit outside by the brewery’s horse barn. This cellar beer has a predominant toasted oak flavor, Carey said, but is otherwise hard to describe, hence its name. New Glarus also will be hawking its Hometown Blonde and the seasonal Staghorn Oktoberfest, and get your mitts on some of the Moonman no coast pale ale. Brewer Dan Carey spent more than a year hunting down hop varieties to capture the grapefruit pale ale bouquet and smooth body found in this beer.

Finally, if you scored entry to the fun house that is the Great American Beer Festival, you owe it to yourself to go outside your comfort zone. Be bold and brave; the festival is your foam-filled oyster.

“Whether you’re a brewer, homebrewer or craft beer drinker, we’re all there for the same reason – we love beer!” Glanville said.

>> I didn’t get tickets.  

Recognizing that the beer aficionados drawn to Denver for this annual affair far outnumber the quantity of tickets available for the various drinking sessions, breweries have expanded their vision outside the festival, creating complimentary events all over the city.

After the opening night GABF session Thursday, Oct. 11, Oskar Blues is hosting “It’s All About the Package” at the Blake Street Tavern, featuring giveaways and samples of some the brewery’s favorites. The party runs from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., and free tickets are available on the Oskar Blues Facebook page.

Just down the road on the following afternoon, Friday, Oct. 12, the Leinenkugel brothers will be hanging out at Spanky’s for a Wisconsin fish fry. Get your fix of fried walleye and cheese curds at this little bar in LoDo, and wash it down with $2.75 pints of Leinenkugel beers. Once you’ve noshed on Wisconsin’s best, roll down to Falling Rock Tap House, the first stop on Avery’s Pucker Up Poker Run. Advanced tickets ($45) are required for this crazy crawl through Denver, which runs until about 5 p.m. At each stop, get a 4-ounce pour of a rare sour beer, a 6-ounce pour of a palate-cleansing beer and a playing card. The best five-card poker hand at the end of the run gets a prize.

>> I’m on house arrest. 

The Brewing Network and BeerTapTV will be showing a live stream of a handful of events at the GABF, including the awards ceremony and medal presentation for the brewing competitions starting at about 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13. Find links to the video and audio channels at the Brewers Association website at www.brewersassociation.org. You can catch the festival buzz from the comfort of your own home with an Internet connection and a bottle or three of your favorite past category winners as you learn about what you should be drinking in the coming year.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

Like beer? Go here

Sept. 26, 2012

Back in June, I sent out a call for readers to recommend establishments in the valley that go above and beyond with their craft beer selections. After a handful of beer-cooler surveys, I’m happy to announce three of the top local spots to grab a unique brew and, in the words of the proprietors, what makes their beer collections so special:

>> Atwater on Gore Creek, Vail

Total number of beers available: 42.

Number of breweries represented: 34.

Fall beers to try: Avery Kaiser, Elysian Night Owl and Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen.

Laura Lodge is responsible for the craft beer program at the Vail Cascade, including Atwater on Gore Creek, the resort’s restaurant. She said she tries to maintain a general proportion of 40 percent Colorado, 40 percent American outside of Colorado and 20 percent international selections on Atwater’s beer list.

“Within that, I try to distribute the styles and drinkers’ experience levels across the board and try to break up the geography: have some East Coast beers and West Coast beers and some in between,” she said.

The goal at Atwater is to give guests the opportunity to have a diverse experience with beer and food, Lodge said, by offering a range of beers from the accessible, gateway varieties to farther off the deep end beers for the connoisseur. The draft beer selection at Atwater changes every six weeks during the busy seasons, and the restaurant features free craft beer tasting on Wednesday nights, Friday Night Flights in the Fireside Bar and monthly Brewmaster Weekends, where brewers talk about their beers while diners sup on small plates crafted by the Atwater culinary team.

“I think that craft beer is something different that’s coming into the food and beverage world that diners and foodies should pay close attention to because it can provide such a unique element to a dining experience,” Lodge said. “I don’t think that all people who love and embrace food are aware of what that craft beer element can bring to a meal.”

>> Kirby Cosmo’s BBQ Bar, Minturn

Total number of beers available: 42.

Number of breweries represented: 23.

Fall beers to try: Stone Arrogant Bastard, Uinta Hop Notch and Oskar Blues Deviant Dale’s.

Mark Tamberino, owner of Kirby Cosmo’s, said that he has two things in mind when stocking beer at his restaurant.

“My overall goal in selecting beer is to make sure that what I have is A, some of the best beer in the valley on tap and in the case and B, to keep it new and fresh, to make sure that what I have isn’t dated,” he said.

To keep his selection fresh, Tamberino rotates his seasonal beers four times a year and keeps an eye on what people in the valley are drinking.

“I do some research at Avon Liquors or Beaver Liquors and see what they are selling a lot of,” Tamberino said. “They can bring in a bigger variety of stuff. … They point me in the right direction.”

Aside from this market research, Tamberino said he likes to stock beer that he himself would enjoy drinking.

“That’s the best part of my job, the most fun part, choosing beers to bring into my bar,” he said. “I like the smaller craft breweries, and I try to make sure that they are well-represented in my bar. I like to choose beers that are brewed locally in Colorado because I think I have a lot of out of town guests who want to choose beers that are from the state.”

Kirby’s also offers a mug club for its beer aficionados. Once price gets you a 22-ounce mug to keep in the bar, beer specials every day of the week and free dinner once a month, among other perks. Tamberino values his beer drinkers and has created a program at Kirby’s to support them.

“I think it has a lot to do with the success of my restaurant,” Tamberino said. “A lot of people who come into Kirby’s know that we’ll have something different or something that they can’t find on tap anywhere else in the valley.”

>> Old Kentucky Tavern, Eagle

Total number of beers available: 39.

Number of breweries represented: 28.

Fall beers to try: Tommyknocker Pumpkin, Breckenridge Autumn, Left Hand Oktoberfest.

Monica Mattingly is the co-owner and designated beer drinker at Old Kentucky Tavern. When creating the beer list at the restaurant in Eagle, Mattingly tried to keep co-owner Steven “Juice” Morrison in mind.

“I really wanted a variety of beers, and I really wanted beers that were representative of Colorado, especially Bonfire and Crazy Mountain and beers that I like and Juice would like,” Mattingly said. “He’s not really a beer drinker, so things that he would like, too.”

Though Old Kentucky strives to have brews on its list to entice the novice drinker, it maintains a healthy dose of high-octane selections, too.

“Monthly, we try to rotate one or two things in there if someone has something new,” she said. “We do a beer special every single day. If it’s on special, people will have a tendency to try it and they might like it.”

Mattingly has spent a lot of time in the front of the house in bars around the valley and said it’s always fun to have a different selection of beers and to encourage people to try new things.

“One of the only markets that was increasing last year was the craft beer market,” she said. “So you know people are trying it.”

Having Bonfire Brewery close by doesn’t hurt, either.

“Bonfire does some really great short runs that we like to have,” Mattingly said. “When we’re out of Bonfire, we can just run out the back door and grab something; it’s nice and convenient to have a brewery at your back door.”

Craft beer makes sense for Old Kentucky because it pairs well with bourbon and a lot of the restaurant’s Southern cooking, Mattingly said, and it adds to the enjoyment of the meal.

“When somebody comes in and wants something interesting, they know that they can find it here,” she said. “We wanted to focus on Colorado beers because they are so good here, but let people have an experience and keep well informed of different beers.”

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

The best way to spend $20 in the valley

July 13, 2012 

We live in an expensive place, a place where 10 percent off barely covers the sales tax and people ride their bikes to work because it’s healthy, yes, but also because gas hovers right around $4 per gallon. So we adapt, we pick and choose when and where we splurge, and we’re constantly looking for the next slamming local deal. Well, my beer-drinking friends, I’ve found it.

Avery brewmaster Matt Thrall, bottom right, and his crew from
Avery Brewing, Dustin Lemoine, center, and Jason Hardwick,
left, taste food pairings from Executive Chef Todd Bemis,
rear, during Vail Cascade's Brewmaster Weekend recently
at Atwater restaurant in Vail.
Photo by Justin McCarty, Vail Daily.

The Vail Cascade, home of the annual Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival, prides itself on its craft-beer program, and in March, the resort’s Atwater restaurant rolled out a new Brewmaster’s Weekend series. Each month, a new brewer shows up to show off a handful of select beers from one of Colorado’s craft breweries. The beers are paired with inventive small plates from executive chef Todd Bemis and his kitchen cronies, and the price tag comes in at a whopping $20.

To give you an idea of what you get for your hard-earned Andrew Jackson, I recently attended one of these small-plate sessions, co-hosted by Matt Thrall, head brewer at Avery Brewing Co., and scribbled some illegible notes on my placemat between bites. This is what I could derive from my shoddy penmanship:

The first beer was Avery’s Maharaja. We obviously wouldn’t be easing our palates into anything here. Thrall calls this beer “a slap in the face” — if you don’t like hops, you won’t like Maharaja. The double IPA is brewed with six to seven pounds of hops per barrel, a blend of Simcoe, Centennial and Chinook that imparts a piney, citrus-forward flavor. Bemis needed something that would stand up to the hops in the beer without elevating the spiciness. He and his crew of chefs landed on pulled Jidori chicken sopes with roasted poblano fennel and salsa verde.

My favorite thing about pairing beer with food is that each bite can bring out new flavors in the brew. In this case, the corn in the sopes helped mute the spice in the Maharaja so you could catch the more fragile flavors of floral and citrus. To bring the hops roaring back, we needed only to take a nibble of the gooseberry that garnished the plate.

For the second course, Bemis had the challenge of pairing one plate with two very different beers from Avery’s Holy Trinity series. The first, Salvation, is made with a Slovenian hop that lends a white-pepper flavor to the beer. The second beer was The Reverend, a strong, dark Belgian quad with a more malty profile — think caramel or raisin flavors. The solution was twofold: mango nigiri with smoked strawberry caviar and braised pork in a lop chung steamed bun.

On to the third beer of the Holy Trinity: Hog Heaven. Thrall calls this his desert-island beer: “If you were on a desert island, you’d want a case — no, a pallet — of this beer to wash up.” The beer has a dank aroma, which lends to its nickname of “dime bag in a bottle.” Originally a home brew created by Adam Avery himself, this one ranks at 100 international bittering units and 9.24 percent alcohol by volume.

Bemis’ “hogs and frogs” pairing for this beer was the first to cause me pause: I’d never had frog legs. I’m from Iowa; we used to catch frogs to use as fish bait. I wasn’t the only one at my table who seemed a bit apprehensive about it, but after a brief inspection, I dived right in. The amphibious little limbs were wrapped in beignet pillows with saffron mayo and sauce puttanesca, a sort of bastardized Southern tomato salsa. Once again, the pairing was dead on.

The fourth and final round was the knock-out punch. The beer, Samael’s (sch-males) oak-aged ale, comes from Avery’s demonic series.

“Samael was God’s knee-breaker,” Thrall said, and this 15.4 percent brute definitely packs a wallop. Thrall said it’s brewed more in the style of an English ale, heavy on the malt and light on the hops. The limited-release beer has a dark caramel color and a woody aroma that comes from being aged in American oak.

Bemis was given explicit instructions not to pair this sweet, strong ale with dessert. So the Atwater boys brainstormed and came up with a savory spin on bananas Foster. The dish featured seared foie gras with a slice of banana drizzled with pineapple sweet and sour and garnished with a fin of delicate dried pineapple. Bemis was able to showcase the fruit and malt characteristics of the beer without resorting to a cloying, syrupy finishing course.

Next up on the docket for this monthly frugal foray into beer and food pairing is a visit from Odell Brewing Co. on Aug. 17 and 18. Call the Vail Cascade at 970-476-7111 for more information or to reserve your spot.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly 

Sour beer: Open wide and embrace the bacteria

June 1, 2012

There are tons of ways to make sour beer, but they all start with bacteria. This might seem counterintuitive to homebrewers who live by the code of sterilize, sanitize, clean and repeat when it comes to brewing beer. Most times, bacteria are the enemy and must be vanquished before they ruin an entire batch of what would have been tasty stuff. Not so with sours.

Andy "Hollywood" Parker, brewer and barrel herder, extols
the virtues of sour beers in the Avery barrel room in Boulder.

“A brewer is basically a janitor 75 percent of the time,” said Andy “Hollywood” Parker, senior brewer and barrel herder for Avery Brewing Co. “With barrel-aged beers, you throw most of that out the window.”

The bacteria produce the lactic or acetic acids that create the unmistakable flavors found in sour beers. The microorganisms are trapped in oak barrels with the beer and work for six months or a year or three or more to do their job, thriving on the trace amounts of oxygen that seep through the slightly porous wood into the barrel. Lactic acid has almost no smell and creates a tingling, sour sensation along the sides of your tongue. The funky, rustic aroma of some beers comes from acetic acid, Hollywood said, which has a vinegary flavor that’s a great component in small amounts.

But how do you channel the bacteria that make great beer? These microbes are floating around us everywhere right now. How do you isolate them? Do you even want to isolate them? A lot of Belgian sours are spontaneously fermented.

“They leave (the beer) out in a big swimming pool, whatever’s in that valley floats in, and they put that work into oak barrels and let it roll for years and years,” Hollywood said. “There are still a few traditional breweries in Belgium that are doing it that way. But it’s a lucky thing; it depends on what’s there.”

One valley could have a population of yeast and bacteria that make great beer, and the next valley over could be a dud. Rather than waiting for the building blocks to fall out of the air, many brewers have harnessed specific strains that they know create predictably palatable beer. Hollywood found his favorite strain of acid-producing bacteria in a barrel and has been propagating it from barrel to barrel to create sours for Avery. What was one barrel became 150, and he continues to play around with other strains from labs to get more variety. Each strain of bacteria creates a totally different flavor profile — even a single strain can be the catalyst for a wide range of brews.

Because sours are so labor intensive — tasting, barrel aging, more tasting, blending, another round of tasting — they are a little harder to come by. That’s what makes Avery’s Sour Fest on Saturday, June 2, special. Hollywood said the 400 available tickets were snatched up in a matter of minutes. If you were one of the lucky ones to procure your golden ticket, look forward to sampling around 60 sours from Crabtree, Crooked Stave, Deschutes, Dry Dock, Funkwerks, Great Divide, Mountain Sun, Odell and The Lost Abbey, among others.

From the Fridge: Avery’s Eremita III

Sour Fest may be sold out, but you can still dig up some great sour beers at local breweries and liquor stores. This week’s installment comes from Avery Brewing Co.’s fridge, not mine, but Eremita III is an enchanting, acidic enigma and worth a closer look. As its name indicates, this is the third beer in the Eremita series of sours.

The series is exclusive to the Avery Tap Room in Boulder, as Hollywood wanted to put all of his time and creativity into the beer instead of squandering it on label approval or bottling or trucking it around to festivals. Eremita I was really easy drinking, he said, and Eremita II was a blonde sauced with loads of peaches and apricots, giving it an incredibly fruity profile.

Eremita III comes from the same microbial stock as its predecessors, but it’s an animal all its own. This brew is a blend of five different beers from 12 different barrels. Hollywood spent months with a blind tasting panel and started with a bank of about 30 oak barrels to come up with this rich, dark beer that has an earthy, sour aroma from just the right amount of acetic acid.

“After about 20 to 30 blends, we narrowed it down to those 12 barrels, and each of those barrels added something to that complex blend,” Hollywood said. “It’s not like hey, we put some beer in a barrel. It takes a lot of work. And by work I mean sitting around and tasting beer. We’re not sitting around drinking beer; we’re tasting beer — we’ll plan our day around not having coffee beforehand or eating beforehand.”

And when this big, tongue-tingling beer is gone, it’s gone.

“I’m not even interested in trying (to replicate any of the Eremita beers),” Hollywood said. “I probably can’t reproduce Eremita. Is it possible? Maybe, but that’s not as interesting to me as creating something new and different.”

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly 

How big is too big to be a brewpub?

May 18, 2012

In Colorado, brewpubs operate under a different set of rules than their big-name manufacturing counterparts. What applies to Miller-Coors does not apply to Twisted Pine and vice versa. But a handful of Colorado’s microbreweries aren’t so micro any more, and they are struggling with legislation that prohibits them from occupying a new niche in the state beer industry.

Guzzling seasonal brews at the Breckenridge
Brewery brewpub. Photo by Devin Schow.

According to the Denver Business Journal, the Colorado legislature recently dropped House Bill 12-1347, a proposal that would have increased the production cap for brewpubs. The bill was allowed to die due to opposition from industries along the pipeline, from beer birthing to distribution to retail, all of which complained that increasing the cap would give brewpubs an unfair advantage in the overall beer market.

So pending the passage of some revision of the dead bill, these breweries are faced with a choice: shut down their brewpubs and switch over to manufacturing licenses, thus avoiding the production cap, or build new breweries outside of the state to increase production. These guys don’t want to abandon their freedom to conduct research and development at the consumer level through their brewpubs — they don’t want to eliminate that personal connection between those who brew the beer and those who drink it — so a lot of growing breweries are looking at option No. 2.

Both New Belgium and Oskar Blues in the past few months have announced plans to propagate their operations in North Carolina. But Breckenridge Brewery is the only brewpub currently teetering on the edge of making too much beer for its place in the Colorado rulebooks.

Breck Brewery public relations maven Terry Usry said that brewery is still looking at ways to stay within Colorado, and the option of building out of state is just that — an option. Breck is still dedicated to its Colorado roots and the culture of craft brewing. She said that though Breck beers can now be found in 33 states, the company is still rolling out a small-batch line that allow its brewers to be creative and give consumers options that range from mainstream brews such as Avalanche Ale to its numbered-bottle, barrel-aged series.

So though it’s disappointing that the Colorado legislature failed to enact a provision that would allow our beloved craft brewpubs to grow and prosper right here in the state, brewers are creative, and Breckenridge, and other brewpubs that follow, will figure out new ways to expand and thrive and keep doling out the tasty brews we crave.

 

From the Fridge: Breckenridge Brewery 471 Small Batch

I have a couple of Breckenridge Brewery beers in my fridge at the moment, but in the vein of celebrating this little-big time brewpub’s continued dedication to its small-batch roots, I decided to drill brewmaster Todd Usry about his 471 Small Batch IPA.

“We just wanted something that was big and hoppy, high in alcohol but balanced,” Todd Usry said of the beer, which was first released in 2006. “We have a wide variety of styles, but we stay true to balance as much as possible. I was inspired by Russian River’s Pliny the Elder and Avery’s Maharajah. I wasn’t necessarily trying to emulate them but create something that had that kind of balance and flavor.”

The big, piney-citrus hop flavor comes from a blend of Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe and Fuggles hops, with an enormous malty wash on the back side that works well with the hoppiness up front, creating a great finish for every sip, Todd Usry said.

“A lot of double IPAs are over the top one way or the other or they’re overly boozy,” Todd Usry said. “You get that alcohol burn on them.”

Breck douses that after burn with cold conditioning. The beer is held at 34 degrees for five weeks to scrub out the harsh alcohol volatiles found in other imperial or double beers. The result is a potent 9.2 percent alcohol by volume beer that’s still very drinkable.

So what’s next off the line at Breckenridge Brewery? Todd Usry said to look for a re-release of the 72 Imperial Chocolate Cream Stout and a new collaboration with Stranahan’s on the heels of the Well Built ESB. This time, Breck will be whiskey barrel-aging and bottling its main line Vanilla Porter.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead
Vail Daily Weekly

Hophead celebrates American Craft Beer Week

May 11, 2012

American Craft Beer Week is upon us, and this rollicking, nationwide celebration presents the perfect opportunity to roll out the Vail Daily Weekly’s new column about beer. Ladies, gentlemen, beer snobs — I give you Hophead.

Double fisting at Aspen Brewing Co. Photo by Devin Schow.

Each week, I will dive into the sea of beer culture and surface with some nugget of truth that every beer lover should know. We’ll cover everything from beer history and evolution to beer styles, from commercial production to home brewing. Think of it as a launch pad for your beer education, a two-handed shove out of your mundane beer-drinking existence.

I’ll also do a weekly mini feature titled From the Fridge that showcases a particular beer that I’m enjoying at the moment. I try not to ever buy the same beer twice, and with hundreds of microbreweries popping up all over the country every year, there’s always a reason to seek out a new and interesting brew.

I don’t purport to be a beer expert. It wasn’t so long ago that I was sneaking crappy beer out of my parents’ fridge, and it takes a lifetime, nay many lifetimes, to accumulate a sliver of knowledge about this wonderful, heady stuff. But what I lack in years on the pint, I make up for in enthusiasm and a dearth of vanity about leaning on those who are experts in the field. If I don’t know the answer, I will find someone who does.

So that brings us back to this week’s celebration of craft beer, and the best thing about it is that there’s a reason to drink a bucket of suds every day of the week:

Make the trek to Longmont on Saturday, May 12, for a collaborative event between Oskar Blues and Ska Brewing. Ska will expropriate half of the bar at Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids in a nonhostile tap takeover. The guys from Durango are bringing 15 of their favorite brews, and Oskar Blues will throw down its own staples, as well as a potpourri of specialty beers. Also part of Colorado Beer Week, Ska will be hosting a guided cruiser crawl amongst four bars in downtown Denver on Sunday, May 13. Crawlers get their first beer for free and discounts on all Ska beers after that. Visit www.skabrewing.com or www.oskarblues.com for more information.

You can’t go on a weeklong bingo bender without starting on Monday. About a dozen breweries in Northern Colorado have banded together with the American Brewers Association to present brewery bingo. Grab a bingo card at a participating brewery in Greeley, Berthoud, Loveland or Fort Collins  — Odell’s, New Belgium, City Star, Grimm Bros., Crabtree and Funkwerks are all playing the game — and get a stamp every time you try a beer listed on the card. Complete a bingo line, and you win a T-shirt. You have all week, through Sunday, May 20, to play the game. For more information, visit www.craftbeer.com.

Make a mid-week pit stop at Strange Brewing Co. in Denver for Nostalgia Tuesday on May 15. In honor of the brewery’s second anniversary, head brewer Tim Myers is rolling out some classic brews. Share a pint in Strange’s brand-new biergarten, or come back later in the week for live music Thursday, May 17, and Friday, May 18, and the big anniversary party on Saturday, May 19, starting with kegs and eggs at 9 a.m. For details, visit www.strangebrewingco.com.

Beer week also has some love for the ladies. Sisterhood of the Hop, a female brew club in Boulder, will be hosting a screening of the documentary “The Love of Beer” at the Avery Brewing Co. Barrel Aging Cellar in Boulder on Wednesday, May 16. The feature-length film celebrates women in the beer industry, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Tickets are $10 and include a pint of beer. Visit www.averybrewing.com for more information.

The local guys are throwing themselves into the fray this week, too. Crazy Mountain Brewing Co. fans are invited to visit the brewery’s Facebook page and submit entries to a trivia contest throughout the week. A winner will be drawn on Friday, May 18, at a special event at the brewery’s tasting room. The night will feature music from the Stache from 6 to 10 p.m. and food from Belmont Deli, and the trivia drawing will happen near the end of the evening. For more information, visit www.crazymountainbrewery.com.

For full calendars of events and everything else you need to know about beer week, visit www.cobeerweek.com or www.craftbeer.com.

American Craft Beer Week is the perfect opportunity to cozy up and get friendly with the saucy mistress that is beer. Grab a blonde, brunette or red-headed craft-beer courtesan, and enjoy the ride.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead
Vail Daily Weekly