Don’t forget après in your ski season preparations

Oct. 26, 2012

With snow in the forecast in coming days and Loveland and Arapahoe Basin premiering their individual ribbons of chaos for skiing and riding, it’s time to take stock of your personal provisions for the ski season. Ski conditioning classes have been squarely kicking my butt (whenever I can drag said butt out of bed in the morning to attend), and my sticks are standing at the ready for a final tune before Opening Day at Vail on Nov. 16. That leaves only one other key area of preparation to be addressed: après.

You can’t ride into winter without inspecting every arrow in your quiver of fun, from first tracks to last call.

And if you still need some help, head down to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Nov. 2-4. For the second year in a row, the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo will take a double-barreled approach to shelling you into the ski season. If you want to grab some last-minute deals on gear, the expo features the largest ski and snowboard sale in the state, with prices marked down 40 percent to 75 percent on last season’s threads and shreds. But the really brilliant part is that you can don your new winter duds and strut over to the adjoining Rocky Mountain Brew Fest to test your après prowess. Find out if that sweet new softshell can handle a steady drizzle of wobbling IPA or whether you need some work on ski boot walking after a few brews by sampling the wares of these Colorado breweries:

>> AC Golden Brewing Co.

Steve Fletcher, a brewing with AC Golden, said the brewery would be pouring its flagship Colorado Native beer, as well as a relatively new offering, an India Pale Lager.

“It’s a pale lager, so it’s lagered, which really accentuates the character of the hops,” Fletcher said. “It’s more delicate, which makes the hop pop, and finishes really nice and crisp and clean.”

Fletcher has already taken his first few ski runs of the season and said the brewing and ski industries go hand in hand in Colorado because they seek to achieve the same results: have a great time and possibly try something outside your comfort zone.

“Obviously, what’s bigger in Colorado than the outdoors and riding and skiing. I think it’s a perfect blend of things to do,” he said. “Every time I’m up skiing or boarding, everybody is in a great, fun mood. Everybody is on vacation all day long — same with a beer festival.”

>> Elevation Beer Co.

The beer buffs at Elevation take their skiing, and their brewing, very seriously. The brewery divides its products into four categories, green, blue, black and double black, an homage to the universally recognized ski-slope rating hierarchy. Xandy Bustamante, co-founder and national sales and distribution manager, said Elevation, located just outside Salida in Poncha Springs, has a close relationship with nearby Monarch Mountain.

“The ski expo felt like a good fit for us, and we’re excited to be a part of it this year,” Bustamante said. “Our brewery is only six months old; it’s one of the newer ones in Colorado.”

Elevation will be pouring its First Cast IPA, 8 Second Kolsh and either Downpour, a double IPA, or Apis IV, a Belgian quad made with local honey. Elevation brews will be on tap for après at Monarch, Ski Cooper and a couple of places in Copper this winter, Bustamante said, and will also be making their way into the Vail Valley for the first time this season, starting with the black and double black series. Bustamante said the Elevation crew is looking forward to its first Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo.

“We’re excited to go down there and pour beer for our target consumers, people like us,” he said.

 

>> Left Hand Brewing Co.

This will be the second trip to the expo and brew fest for Left Hand, said Josh Breckel, Colorado sales manager for the brewery. Left Hand will be pouring its signature Milk Stout Nitro and its Sawtooth Ale, a bronze-medal winner in the Ordinary or Special Bitter category at the recent Great American Beer Festival in Denver. The nitro version has a bit of a different mouth feel than the standard carbonated Milk Stout.

“CO2 is much more noticeable on the palate; it’s got that almost carbonic burning sensation on your cheeks and your tongue,” Breckel said. “(The Nitro is) much more smooth, creating a more creamy, rounder effect.”

Breckel said there isn’t a sexy story related to the brewery’s involvement in the expo. Coordinators reached out to Left Hand for the inaugural event last year, and the brewery agreed.

“Skiing is an important part of Colorado,” he said. “The people who get out there and ski and snowboard are definitely our demographic, and we want to support things that are interesting to them. … What I look forward to in any of these events is the guerrilla marketing aspect of it, talking to people who may not have had our beers before and introducing them to something that maybe becomes their new favorite beer.”

Big Choice, Bristol, Eddyline, Grand Lake, Great Divide, Odell and Ska breweries also will be in attendance pouring beers to help with your après conditioning.

Entry to the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo is $12, cash only. The Rocky Mountain Brew Fest is an additional $12 or $15 at the door, which includes three beer samples and one full beer. Additional sampling tickets also will be available for purchase. For more information on the expo and brew fest, including a list of exhibitors, or to buy advance tickets, visit http://www.bewisports.com/expos/denver.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

A beer brewed for a locavore

Aug. 24, 2012

Crazy Mountain Brewery in Edwards is taking its beer making a step further with the addition of whole, fresh hops. When the bitter critters are ready to harvest, the brewery sends a few brave souls down to Hippie Chicks Organic Hops in Palisade to pick, sort and bag hop flowers, which are then used to create the brewery’s new beer, Sticky Fingers. 

But why go to all of the trouble when hop pellets and even dried, whole-hop flowers are readily available without the laborious hours spent wrangling the skin-irritating little beasts?

“As much as a chef would love to see how the food is grown that they’re cooking with, I think it’s the same kind of philosophy,” said Tracey Kling, sales representative at Crazy Mountain. “You get to participate in the brew process to see how the ingredients are grown and how the hops are made and where they come from — it’s pretty awesome.”

In order to follow this hop trip from farm to glass, you have to start at the bine. Sometimes erroneously called hop vines, hop bines distinguish themselves by their hooked stem hairs called trichomes, which grip as they climb up a rod, trellis or hanging wire. The bines can grow as tall as 50 feet and die to the ground in the winter, only to start the climb anew the next spring. During harvest, crews cut down the hop bines and strip them of their flowers, either mechanically or by hand.

The hops are sorted to remove leaves and stems that wouldn’t be good for the beer, Kling said. Most of the flowers, such as the ones pictured above, are put in racks with sandy bottoms and dried. They are conditioned and then packed into bags to be sold by the pound to brew houses all over the state and by the ounce to enthusiastic home brewers who want to add some Colorado flavor to their beers.

The hops that make their way into Sticky Fingers are picked and refrigerated and must be thrown into the beer boil within 24 hours of harvest before they start to degrade. For Kling, that meant harvesting hops late into the night on a recent Monday and then trucking them back to Crazy Mountain early the next morning. Less than 12 hours after being removed from their bines, these little green goblins were tossed into a vat at the end of the boil to become pungent, exquisite beer.

 “They are more volatile at that fresh stage, being fresh picked, and really impart an intense flavor and aroma,” Kling said. “And that’s why you really utilize those additions of the hops — flavor and aroma.”

From the Fest

There were a lot of great beers being poured at Ed Fest in the Riverwalk at Edwards on Aug. 18, many of which I’ve had the pleasure of tasting on previous occasions. Here are a few that were new to me:

>> Crazy Mountain Sticky Fingers

The crew at Crazy Mountain put in its time at the hop farm, and the result was this fresh-hopped beer. The aroma had that delicious, flowery hit that you only get from adding hops late in the brewing process, and the bitter edge had the fresh feel of crushing a hop flower in your fingers and smearing the oils on the back of your tongue. This first 20-barrel batch was made with 200 pounds of Chinook hops, which have a piney, citrus flavor, Kling said. The next round will feature Cascade hops, which are known for their floral attributes.

>> Eddyline Boater Beer

After spending some time nosing around the festival for heavy hitters and beers that sit high on the bittering scale, Eddyline’s Boater Beer was a welcome change. True to its name, this pale-yellow pilsner was designed with the boater in mind. It’s light, refreshing and sessionable, and it comes in a can so you can pack it on the river for when you inevitably have to throw back a bootie beer.

>> Bristol Compass IPA

India pale ales seem to be growing in intensity as their popularity has exploded in the craft-beer market. It now seems like a contest to see who can pack the most hops into a single batch of beer. Instead of blowing it out on the bitter end, Bristol achieved a good balance when creating the Compass IPA. This amber-colored beer has the right amount of pep from a combination of Columbus, Chinook and Cascade hops, but you can still taste some of those roasty malt undertones that level the brew.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

Nothing’s more American than beer and barbecue

May 25, 2012

This week, we will celebrate Memorial Day. In honor of those who have fought and died for our country, we will partake of the fruits of the very soil they gave their lives to protect — fermented, bottled and paraded across the lawn at Beaver Creek.

Beer and barbecue at Kirby Cosmo's BBQ
Bar in Minturn. Photo by Christian Caslin.

This year, for the first time, Blues, Brews & BBQ will allow co-mingling of beer and brisket. The all-outdoor venue will stretch from the lawn adjacent to the Centennial lift down to the plaza around the ice rink, allowing beer snobs to rub elbows with barbecue aficionados. I’m predicting a chaotic jumble of anarchy — kolschs paired with pulled pork, ribs dunked in brown ales, hot links crammed into mouths alongside IPAs. It’ll be fantastic.

Though touted as an exclusively Colorado microbrew tasting, one curious entry slipped through the chinks in Beaver Creek’s beer festival armor. Scott Gubrud, director of sales and marketing for the Park Hyatt, acknowledged the limitations of the new online registration system. It lacks the checks and balances that would require breweries to be indigenous of Colorado. Thus, we have Brasserie Brunehaut, from Belgium. But Beaver Creek’s marketing foible is a coup for beer lovers.

Charlie Cindric, importer for Brunehaut, said he would be pouring three or four beers, starting with a gluten-free beer that he claims to be the best of its class in the world. Possible hyperbole aside, it’s worth wandering over to get a taste and also to try Brunehaut’s St. Martin Brun and Trippel. St. Martin was originally produced in 1096 as a trappist beer, making it one of the oldest recipes in the world. Cindric said the brown-sugar, caramel taste of the Brun will pair well with the sweet tang of barbecue.

Rockyard Brewing Co, out of Castle Rock, is toting a foursome of carbonated creations up the mountain, starting with Hopyard IPA. Brewmaster Jim Stinson said the IPA has the aroma of skipping through a hop garden and would be a faithful companion to zestier barbecue. He’s also bringing the Scottish export-style Red Hawk Ale, which just won a silver medal at the World Beer Cup in Denver, and his Double Eagle Ale, which he said is good for before or after mowing the lawn. Stick around the Rockyard tent for a couple of deviations, too. Stinson said they’d most likely have Belgian, imperial or super somewhere in the moniker.

Josh Breckel said the brewers at Left Hand are cranking out beer as fast as they possibly can, working their fingers to the nubbins, as my mother would say. The result is that they never know quite what they will have on hand to bring up to Beaver Creek until the last minute. The guys in the warehouse will be picking a few favorites, but Breckel said two brews that will definitely make an appearance are the nitro version of the well-loved Milk Stout and Smokejumper, an imperial smoked porter. Left Hand smokes all of the malt for this beer in house, allowing the brewers to choose a blend of woods that give the exact flavor hit they’re looking for. Smokejumper is an apt choice for a dry year: Left Hand works with the National Smokejumpers Association to raise money for trail restoration.

Other beers to look for: AC Golden’s Colorado Native, an amber lager made with all Colorado ingredients and one of the oldest yeast strains in the U.S.; Bristol Brewing’s Laughing Lab Scottish ale, a malty brew that goes well with heavy, greasy barbecue; and Golden City Brewery’s Clear Creek Gold kolsch, a sessionable, effervescent palate cleanser.

For a full list of the breweries attending the festival, visit www.beavercreek.com and look for the “Blues, Brews & BBQ” link under the “Events & Activities” tab.

From the Fridge: Crazy Mountain Lava Lake Wit

Crazy Mountain will be bringing its Hops of Prey fruit-forward IPA, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades ESB and brand-new summer seasonal Scenic Route Kolsch to the Blues, Brews & BBQ beer festival at Beaver Creek, but I’ve lately been enjoying the sunshine with cans of the brewery’s Lava Lake Wit.

 

Canned beer is perfect for summertime. You can pop it in your backpack to enjoy on the trail, throw it in a cooler for a raft trip down the river or haul it to a softball game by the case. Crazy Mountain began canning its Lava Lake Wit and Mountain Livin’ Pale Ale this spring, completing a trifecta that started with its flagship Amber Ale.

This beer is a golden color with a strong coriander flavor and hints of orange. I was recently cooking an Oaxacan-inspired pork tenderloin with a chipotle-orange sauce and got giddy about grabbing one of these wits to pair with it, only to find that they had all mysteriously vanished from the fridge — or maybe not such a mystery, since I was probably the one who drank them all.

Enjoy this beer with a light conscience: A percentage of all of the proceeds are donated to the Eagle River Watershed Council.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead
Vail Daily Weekly