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

Wanted: A watering hole for a beer drinker

June 22, 2012

 There are few things that rank as high on my enjoyment scale as beer. These include riding a Paco pad through a wave train, trolling for new books on my Kindle, hitting freshies on a powder day — and the food-coma feeling you get after a really satisfying meal. When I head out to sate my lust for epicurean delights, there’s nothing more frustrating than walking into a restaurant and being presented with a 200-bottle wine list and a selection of five lack-luster beers. Why does beer get the shaft?

Fortunately, some establishments in the Vail Valley are discovering that a well-crafted, flavorful beer can be as good or better a companion than wine or cocktails to thoughtful dishes and, as a result, are beefing up their beer lists. It is my mission this summer to put your discerning beer noses on the scent of these places so you can sniff out some new favorite watering holes.

So I am setting out to discover where to go in the valley to find the best selection of beer — on tap or in the bottle, from Colorado or beyond. And I need your help. Nominate a bar or restaurant with a baller beer inventory by shooting me a line at kdriscoll@vaildaily.com. I’ll go survey the goods and give each spot an objective score based on criteria ranging from total number of beers available to whether the menu lists beer pairings for particular dishes. The top three will throw down in a future column where you, my fellow hopheads, will be the final judges.

You have until July 31 to send me your recommendations. Include your reasoning for why a certain locale should be included on my list. Does your selected venue carry a beer that can’t be found anywhere else in the valley? Does it have particularly comfy bar stools or a fancy glassware collection dedicated to serving beer? Do you have fond memories of being introduced to a favorite brew there? Bonus points for your suds stop if you have a great anecdote that sets it apart.

There are a few parameters for this contest: Nominees must be public drinking establishments (perhaps you’re a collector and your fridge boasts a killer variety of beer, but until you get a liquor license, it doesn’t do the rest of us any good), liquor stores are ineligible (we’ll get to you at a later date) and the site in question must be within the borders of Eagle County.

Don’t be shy; enlighten me. You owe it to your fellow beer drinkers to tell them what they’ve been missing.

From the Fridge: Oskar Blues Deviant Dale’s Pale Ale

Oskar Blues started canning its first 16-ounce offering early this year. Deviant Dale’s is the hop-sloshed companion of one of the brewery’s staples, Dale’s Pale Ale, and was birthed at the brewpub in Lyons.

“It’s got four hop additions, plus the dry hopping with Columbus (hops),” said Chad Melis, beer peddler for Oskar Blues. “It’s a really similar hop mix to Dale’s; it’s just that dry-hopping with an excessive amount of Columbus that sets it off.”

Deviant Dale’s is a rosy sienna color with a floral aroma and an easy-drinking flavor that belies its 8 percent alcohol by volume content. The beer’s coming out party occurred at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, where it won a silver medal in an India pale ale category that was inundated with worthy competitors.

Good brewers don’t make something twice if they don’t really love it, and this delightful deviant is a great addition to the Oskar Blues stable.

“We make beer that we love and sit down in our restaurants and listen to feedback,” Melis said. “That beer has continued to have a growing following in our restaurant, and it’s a beer that we really love.”

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly 

The view from the river is always better

June 8, 2012

 As a preface, Hophead does not condone drinking in excess on the river, especially in situations where there are rapids to be navigated. Know the state laws concerning drinking and boating on the river you are traveling, and know your own limits. Always put safety first, and always have a sober guide.

A can topper can help keep river water out of your beer. Just
be careful when applying it, so it doesn't end up like this.

That said, there’s nothing like a tasty brew on a relaxing float trip or when you eddy out for a snack. It’s a bit of a science to head out on a multi-day rafting excursion and still have a cold beverage in your fist when you’re unrigging the boat a week later, but with careful preparation, you can be drinking your favorite frosty, hoppy number long after you’ve forgotten what a hot shower feels like.

A friend and long-time rafting guide who has run everything from Brown’s Canyon to the Grand Canyon was kind enough to share his strategy for packing beer for long trips on the river. Initial cooler space should be used for food and ice only, he said.

“Starting out a trip with beer in a cooler is the mark of an amateur,” he said. “Your daily beer intake should be cooled in the river with a drag bag. Spend some money here; don’t go cheap and use a mesh laundry bag. That’s a guaranteed recipe for shedding some serious tears.”

Coolers should be packed by the day, he said. For example, all food for Camp 1 through Camp 3 should be in the same cooler. By Day 3, you have a cooler only containing ice. Spread this ice to other coolers or use for cocktails — margarita night! Now you have an empty cooler to fill with beer and cold river water. Beer that hasn’t found a home in a cooler or drag bag can be tied up in sacks and loaded into every spare spot on the boat, my boating buddy said.

“Best thing in the world are woven poly pro sacks like you’d find full of grain in a tack store. Burlap sacks are great, too,” he said. “Best part is they are perfect to fill up with your crushed cans — that’s called presorted recycling, baby.”

What beer you pack for your trip is a matter of personal preference, but with all of the great micro brews that are now available in cans, be sure to supplement your stash of Busch Light and PBR with some Colorado flavor. My rafting cohorts suggested everything from Mama’s Little Yella Pils to Colorado Native. I like to hide a few cans here and there, diamonds in the rough. It’s like sending yourself flowers when you find them a few days later.

All of these beer-handling provisions will be for naught if you don’t have a way to protect your beer once it is open. Invest in a River Betty — a fancy doohickey that pulls a lid over your can when you set it inside to keep river water out — or rig your own beer-secure contraption. This can be anything from a heavy foam Koozie with a piece of rope taped to it to wear around your neck to improvising with the front gear pocket on your PFD or, for the ladies, your wonderful, can-holding cleavage.

Don’t forget your river knife and a fistful of limes. If the unthinkable occurs and you find yourself with a warm beer, a few minutes in a drag bag and a wedge of lime will make it palatable again.

From the Fridge: AC Golden Colorado Native

 You can’t be a proper Colorado junk boater without bringing along a few cans of Colorado beer. No worries; AC Golden has you covered. The brewery’s flagship beer, Colorado Native, is now available in cans.

Native is an amber lager rated at 38 IBUs brewed in copper kettles before being cold aged and cold filtered. AC Golden brewer Steve Fletcher said it’s been a challenge — in a good way — to make a beer with all Colorado ingredients.

“When we first launched, we were still working on the hop part of it,” Fletcher said. “Our demand was a little bit more than our hop supply initially. But now we’re totally 100 percent Colorado ingredients.”

The majority of those hops are hand picked in the San Luis Valley. The barley for Colorado Native also hails from that valley, and the yeast is the oldest known strain in Colorado. The final component is Rocky Mountain snowmelt water.

This lager is smooth drinking, and at 5.5 percent alcohol by volume, you can enjoy a couple on the river without compromising your line. Pair it with grilled meats over the campfire or cold cuts at a lunch stop. The hopped up, slightly fruity flavor goes with just about anything.

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