Beaver Creek and Colorado Native

Been in a bit of a funk of late – thankfully not for lack of good people around me. There’s just this sort of self-starting internal glumness that settles in now and then, accompanied by a bit of writer’s block (if I may be so bold as to call myself a “writer” for hell’s sake) and no matter whom you’re around or where you go, the pervasive gloominess hangs on for some reason.

Well, in spite of all that there are a couple of neat things to relate here at BeerRant, so I’ll be about it before this shadiness, this crankiness gets worse.

FLAGSTAFF IN THE FALL (It's nice.)

I rarely venture far outside the greater Phoenix area and when I do it’s almost always work related. A jaunt up I-17 to Flagstaff the last month of October was no exception. I spoke at a conference near the NAU campus on a Thursday afternoon and made a trip out of it, attending the conference all day Thursday and half of Friday. But what to do with my spare time on Thursday night? I did a bit of research on local brewpubs and by the time I’d arrived Thursday morning I’d pretty well determined that I would walk over to Beaver Street Brewery, just up the street from the conference center and the NAU campus.

It was dark by the time I set out from the conference center to make my way the two or three blocks to find Beaver Street Brewery’s operation. (I’d stopped to chat with other conference attendees and share an overpriced bottle of Fat Tire before heading off on my own.) I negotiated some road construction in the dark and managed to find Beaver Street with little difficulty. I was seated promptly and had menus in hand immediately. I kept one eye on the world series game while I scanned the menu to make my selections. Bowl of chili and a pint of their R&R Oatmeal Stout. I didn’t have my Beer Engineer’s Field Book during this trip, but a 3x5 index card made a nice substitute. Here’s what I jotted on that card:
R&R Stout. Dark/opaque with a sturdy head. Faint hint of chocolate in the smell and noticeable in the taste. Every bit as good as [Deschutes’] Obsidian Stout. Heavy lacing.

Every bit as good as Obsidian Stout. What higher endorsement do you need, people? The chili was darned good as well and the cornbread muffin – oh yes. I apologize there isn't a picture of this sturdy stout.

During my meal I spied a sign on the back bar advertising something called Lumberyard Red in cans. Thinking I’d likely need a beer or two back at the hotel, I asked the waitress if they had any package beers cold, when she replied in the affirmative, I had her add a 12-pack of the Lumberyard to my tab, then I settled up and made my way back to the hotel where I watched a couple more innings of the world series before changing over to a Charlie Brown classic. I sampled the Lumberyard there in the hotel and am happy to report that I can recommend it as well. I’ll give a better set of tasting notes soon.

I'll go back to Flagstaff as soon as I can, and when I do, I hope to be able to visit Beaver Street Brewery again.

HOPS TO THE PEOPLE, MAN!

When I first sampled Colorado Native Lager during my visit “back home” this summer, I wasn’t aware that it was a Coors product. I liked it then and I like it now, and perhaps I like it even more (you’ll see why in a second). You’ll see in the blog posts I made regarding the Colorado trip, I didn’t make reference to Colorado Native. Well I sampled it at a Baker Street Pub and snapped a photo with my phone camera, which I can’t download. I do have notes in this here Beer Engineer Field Book and the notes indicate I sampled CNL on two consecutive days. On July 21st I noted that it was “a bit dark for a lager” with a “faintly roasted taste…” and on July 22nd I played pool with my nephew and drank Colorado Native Lager along with some Black Butte Porter and some Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Good company.

More recently, I was chatting with my brother who was in Colorado the same time I was and he raved about a local beer he discovered in Vail or Winter Park or some such place. (I never venture any farther than Clear Creek County when I get to Colorado.) Turns out he was talking about Colorado Native Lager!

I like Colorado Native Lager just fine, I liked it before I knew it was basically a Coors product and I might actually like it more now that I do know it’s a Coors product. It kind of tickles me to get in another gulp of local product at the exclusion of those folks at Golden City Brewing.

Here’s the grading for Colorado Native at Beer Advocate. I wonder if all these folks know it’s a macro brew concoction.

Here's a cool blog post about Colorado Native’s label. Mentioned here is the fact that the ingredients for Colorado Native are 99.8% Colorado grown and that their back label includes something called a SnapTag. (Hmmm. I wonder what ingredients aren’t from Colorado and whether they might be able to do without them for the sake of a perfect 100% score.)

But that’s not the last word. Here's why I REALLY like Colorado Native Lager: I stumbled on a blog post at Mile High Beer. Seems the folks at CNL are going to distribute hop rhizomes to anyone who makes a request. I sent in my request and got a nice email reply. That’s cool. I hope to have that hop rhizome early next year. In the meantime, I’ll post a picture of a hop bud that I retrieved from a local hop plant up stream from the Coors plant, in Clear Creek County. (I’ll give you a hint; it’s not from a hop plant in Idaho Springs or Georgetown.)

Let’s hear if for all the Colorado Natives. (Now excuse me, I'm off to buy a Colorado Native Lager t-shirt.)

The Bad, Better and Best of Fall Seasonals (So Far)

Did Buffalo Bill lay an egg this year?
I’m beginning to wonder. The six pack my daughter picked up for me at the local Cost Plus store tastes a bit sour and at least one of the bottles had some unusual floaters in it. In the interest of fairness, I’ll procure a single or two at the local Total Wine and do a comparison. Is it possible that Cost Plus got the remains of last year’s batch?

On a brighter note.
Sierra Nevada’s Tumbler seasonal is at least a bit better than sour pumpkin ale. My notebook for this offering reads thus:
Definitely brown. Weak head. Has kind of a corny lager smell. A bit sour and pretty weak.

I've come to expect more from the scientists at SN Brewing and this one just doesn't measure up, I'm afraid. I'll continue to look for their Torpedo (for example) instead.

Best of the batch.
I recall first sampling New Belgium’s Hoptober on tap at the Baker Street Pub near my sister’s place outside Denver last year. It was good, though I recall being surprised because I’d expected a somewhat darker, marzen or Oktoberfest style beer, when in fact this one was just a nice, straight up hoppy, light-colored ale.
Well, this years offering (in bottles this time) is no surprise and certainly no disappointment. The notes on this one:
Pours like a pilsener – straw yellow with a white head. Strong hop notes in the smell at first. Citrus/orange taste up front. Dry. Active beading. Medium-heavy lacing. Good – better than Tumbler.

"Better than Tumbler," indeed. (Sometimes this blog damned near writes itself.) Hoptober will be one I'll stock up on and enjoy for Thanksgiving - it's never too early to consider the holiday's, is it. (At right is a shot of the Hoptober from Denver 2009)

We’re heading into the best part of the year for beer lovers, people. Brace yourself. Pace yourself!

Grimm Realities and Some Photos

I see that I’ve only posted about two new posts a month for the past few months. Here’s to consistency, I guess. Guess I’ll ramble on and post some pictures that I’ve had in the hopper for some time.

I’ve sampled plenty of new beers and probably some duplicates (I need to set up a spreadsheet to track what I’m trying) but nothing really jumps out at the moment. Perhaps the big news isn’t what’s in the glass so much as where it’s coming from.

Recall that I got word, third or fourth-hand, that Old World Brewery was out of their location on Lone Cactus and moving into new quarters (much) further south. Well, perhaps it’s karma or just dumb luck, but as events would have it, the new location is within a mile or two of where I ply my trade as a low-level government functionary.

I’ve never sampled beer in Mogadishu or Kabul but I’ve had a few in a now-famous hell hole called Juarez and I was served beer by a one-eyed gal at the Pine Knot Saloon near Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, so I’ll venture that by outward appearances, the “new” Old World venue is not far off the mark, friends. The concertina wire on top of the fences in the neighborhood ought to be enough of an indicator but add a sign on the fence across the street that informs potential trespassers (and lost drunks) that the guard dog is trained to attack and, well, I rest my case. (Thank God I’m too old to be out late partying these days.) Still not convinced? Okay, how’s this: The place has bars on the friggin’ windows, people!

Still, I wish them the best in their move and I’ll drop by again (in the daylight) to see if any of the old gang is around for a tour of the new digs.

While I was in Colorado recently, my nephew raved about a new brewery opening up in Loveland, Colorado. I’ve not sampled any of their offerings but I’ve visited their website
HERE and find it’s very nice! Besides, my nephew knows his beer, so if you’re within the distribution region of Grimm Brother’s Brewery, give them a try and post me a comment here so I’ll know I haven’t been led astray.

Enjoy some pictures…..

Bell's Two Hearted Ale has got to be one of the best beer's I've tried in the last year. I frequently balk at paying $10 or more for a sixpack of beer, but not when I'm buying Two Hearted. I know it's not a "western beer" but I don't mind jumping the fence now and then when the beer his so damned good!

I first tried Blue Moon in cans during a rare visit to a local golf course. Since then, I've purchased a few of them for home consumption and I figured the first one out of the chute ought to be special so I opened the can with an old school opener and set up an ensemble pour. I'm not one for gimmicky packaging tricks but I really do think they need to develop a can opening that better replicates a bottle pour if they plan to stick with this whole can fad.

This time of year I really begin to start thinking about fall and its promise of cooler weather and shorter days. This line of though invariably leads to thoughts of Oktoberfest and Winter seasonal's and then, especially to what I think might be one of the better beer labels out there: New Belgium's Two Below. That's cold! Now, don't get me started on New Belgium's newer line of labels as exemplified by their Ranger IPA - "cheap and uninspired" are words that come to mind and if people pass up the beer because the label is lame, it won't matter how great the beer is. For the record, I've tried the Ranger (may even have done a write up here, I forget) and it's darn fine stuff, the label's just lame.

My birthday was last week and a sweet, dear friend gave me three bottles of Baltika beers from her native Russia, along with a sweet Baltika glass. Naturally I had the Porter first, but now they're all history. Here's a head shop of one of the Baltika's she gave me in year's past. I'll post a picture of the cool glass some time soon.

Catching Up: Eddies: The Documentary and Other Business

Sorry I Took So Long Ed (and Michael)
I watched Eddies: The Documentary about a week ago with my son-in-law. We lounged around his place leisurely swigging some Session Black Lager. It’s really a terrific piece of work and I hope to do a more detailed write up at a later date but except for the fact that filmmaker Michael Peterson doesn’t delve much into the history of Big Rock Brewery, I can’t find anything not to like about the work. Beer drinkers and fans of the filmmaking craft – especially amateur filmmakers – will find a lot to like here!

One noteworthy aspect of the film is the fact that it covers contestants who manage to deliver entries of varying quality and even some who completely fail to come through, so at the end there is no suspicious feeling that Peterson has tweaked the content to provide a better filmic outcome. (Winning entries are evidently not actually aired on television and I thought the sequence near the end where Eddie himself considers running one of the entries in a television spot is especially humorous and a revealing look into the mindset of corporate folks at all levels.)

You need to go to the website Eddies Documentary and have a look at the synopsis and what other folks have had to say. One commentator states that by the end of the film you’ll want to make a film and you’ll want a beer. I’d echo that sentiment and will admit that I’ve already given thought to how I might acquire bottles of Big Rock product in order to conduct a film shoot here in Arizona, USA…but how, I don’t know. I’m pretty good at laying my hands on beer, but not a filmmaker.

Last of the Colorado Notes…For Now
I covered my nice visit to Breckenridge Brewery in Denver and in that post briefly mentioned a nice visit to Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs (where I grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s). Well I stopped there on July 20th on the way back to Denver after a day in Clear Creek County. I ate a plate of their outstanding onion rings and had a pint of their Hop Strike Black Rye IPA (Cascadia Ale to some, perhaps. See my previous musings on this style here and here.) Tommyknocker’s version of this emerging style tips the scales at 7% abv, presents an opaque brown and smells vaguely (and rightly) of grapefruit. The taste is strangely nutty and hoppy at the same time and it’s one of the better examples of this new style that I’ve tried. The waitress told me it’s only been out a month or so.

To round out the meal I enjoyed a Pick Axe Pale Ale (which I’ve had in the past and which I would enjoy again later in the Colorado trip during a lunch with my nephew and his son in Georgetown - that's when the picture was taken). Finally, to put an exclamation point on the visit, I bought a six pack of their TundraBeary to carry back down the hill to Denver. (I enjoyed that immensely, bottle by bottle over the next few days.)

Old World. New Digs?
So I’m sitting here at BeerRant HQ, checking activity on my new Facebook page (which I’ve only had a week or so) and I see a note from one of my nephew’s who says something about Old World Brewery closing down and moving. WTF?

I go to the Old World Brewery website and it’s about as nondescript as ever, so (heh, heh, heh, I’m an insider now) I click on their Facebook link and find a string of comments intimating that they’ve closed down their operation on Lone Cactus and are relocating (much) further south to the area around 25th Avenue and Van Buren.

I’m bothered by this for reasons I can’t explain. Perhaps it’s simply that I no longer have a “local” brewpub in close proximity to my house. It’s sad.

Evidently the “New” Old World will open some time in October. Eh. End of an era.

Last of the 2009 Jubelale and Goodbye to a Great Man

Drank my last bottle of the 2009 Jubelale this evening and will have done so in honor of my Uncle Buff Rutherford who passed away yesterday - gone to be with my mom (his little sister) who went on ahead just this past May 29th. Buff was a man's man, a working man and by the work, you'd know the worker: rock solid and trustworthy. The world's a little less well off today for his loss.

Breckenridge Brewery - Off On a High Note.

I’m sorry to have begun the Colorado recap on a down note, posting a “Beer Jerk” entry about Golden City Brewery. I’ve had a positive bit of feedback from a patron of theirs and that’s heartwarming. Nevertheless, my sentiment remains the same: real beer folk offer a smile and a kind word to all who enter their establishment. (That’s the operative word here, folks. The door was open. An open door signifies something in this world. I’ll let you all do the math.) What part of "Publick House" is unclear?

Now, on a more positive note, I’m at that stage where I’m mentally summarizing the things, places and people I saw in a week of Rocky Mountain memories, returning to the high mountain town where my mom was born and raised in order to allow her brothers and citizens of the town she loved so much an opportunity to say goodbye one last time in a church from 1876.

1. Everything seems smaller each time I return.
2. The summer weather, no matter how hot, entices me to stay forever, but I always know what comes around in late October.
3. A minister with a southern drawl and three missing fingers on his right hand is a fellow I want to have as the leader of my church, any day.
4. There is never enough time to see all the family.
5. Sadly, I feel more and more like a tourist each time I go back there.

I hopped off a plane about 10:30 on a Monday morning, picked up a rental car and headed toward my sister’s place on the west side of town. I’d done a bit of preliminary reconnaissance to determine that the Breckenridge Brew Pub was along the same alignment of 6th Avenue as my sister’s place, so knowing that everyone else would be at work, I made a detour to a little place on Klamath Street just south of the 6th Street alignment.

I pulled into a small side parking lot and snapped a few pictures of the outside of the building - wondering if perhaps I was too early to find them open. (Given later events in the trip, the colossal irony of this now nearly knocks me out of my chair.) The door was indeed open and I entered to find the place empty save a barman and a fellow working in the kitchen (Initially I didn’t see the back of the plant where the bottling line was chugging away mightily.) I hopped onto a stool at the bar and over the usual pleasantries the barman supplied me with a beer list and a menu. I pondered the options, perhaps too long, and settled on a pint of their Ball Park Brown and I ordered bowl of a meat soup that really turned out to be more of a stew that might easily have crossed the table in your mom’s kitchen. The Ball Park Brown presented a dark brown with a thin beige head and a thin mouth feel. It tasted a tad sour, not unlike some manifestations of Old World’s Dark Knight Porter (ah, I love the unpredictability of microbrews, don’t you?)

My host, the barman, was Stuart and, perhaps seeing my interest in the operation, he offered to walk me into the back of the building to see the tanks and the bottling line. Sweet! I gazed upon the tanks and had a peek at the bottling line, where they were just then in the process of bottling up their Vanilla Porter. Stuart stepped around to the line and, plucking a fresh bottle off the line, presented it to me as a memento of the visit. That was nice.

We returned to the bar where I had my lunch and a pint of their Oatmeal Stout. As a lead up to the pint, Stuart explained that they’ve got their stout in a nitrogen “fortified” version and a non-nitrogen version. He poured me a side-by-side sampling and the fortified version is altogether more appealing to the eye for sure and frankly the taste difference is amazing as well. The nitrogen infused stout is a good deal smoother than its non-nitrogen cousin. Stuart told me that they no longer offer growlers of the nitroginated stout because it just doesn’t pour the same once people get it home and they get a lot of wastage trying to pour it from the tap into a growler. To which I offered my theory that a growler beer requires an aggressive pour if a cash and carry customer hopes to come close to replicating a pub pour at home. Stuart seemed to agree.

As Stuart diligently went about the tasks of the typical barman (counting bottles, jotting notes, interacting with the bottling crew and trying to field the inane questions of a visitor) I finished my lunch and beers.

It was altogether a terrific first stop on the Colorado trip and a personal exchange for which I’m grateful. I mentioned the purpose of my visit and we commiserated briefly on the vagaries of life and Stuart offered condolences; all the things one would expect from any public house worth its salt. Made me wish I lived just up the street.

I just wish I’d gotten a chance to go back before catching the flight home a week later. Next time.

Golden City Brew-Ha Ha. Gimme a Coors.

Wherein a native Coloradoan gets a lesson in just how much has changed in 33 years.

I’ve returned from a trip to Colorado and, by and large, it was a nice, if somewhat poignant visit for me. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of new beers sampled and new places visited, there was one significant negative experience that I’ll relate now to get the ugliness out of the way.

Last Friday I went out of my way to find their establishment and, arriving to find an adjacent beer garden full of laughing patrons, I entered through the open front door and approached the counter where I enjoyed the pleasure of being ignored by two or three folks for a couple of minutes, while a line formed behind me – a line occupied by at least one individual who was obviously past the point of intoxication.

Eventually, a woman washing dishes in a back room leaned around the doorframe to ask, “Have you been helped?”

“No,” says I, finally hopeful that I’d gotten in with the right person in the joint. I quickly stated that I’d like a glass of stout.

“We’re closed,” came the reply from the dishwasher. The stunned look on my face must have provoked her into adding that they were only filling containers or some such. (Remember, the beer garden outside is FULL of people.)

I was still attempting to register this nugget of knowledge – and I’m sure the dumb expression on my face told the story – when a second woman, similarly clad in a red t-shirt, sauntered into view. She cast a look toward me and based on her expression I felt the impulse to further explain myself (I frankly don’t recall if she bothered to ask my business). I restated my request for a beer and then trailed off saying, “….but I understand you’re closed.”

The snotty tone of her monosyllabic reply echoes in my head even today, a full week later: “Yeah,” she said, with a sort of rising inflection at the end that implied, “what are you, a moron?”

I stammered something about the price of a t-shirt and said maybe I’d buy one, though in my mind I knew immediately that I’d never, ever purchase another Golden City Brewery product again in my life. I took the brief walk of shame toward the door and out into the fading light of a Colorado evening. My hopes of sampling a local stout dashed.

Golden City Brewery touts itself as the second largest brewery in Golden, Colorado. For now, my money will go to support the biggest brewery in Golden, Colorado because, for all their big business, stomp-the-little-guy swagger, Coors still makes decent beer and their staff aren’t wankers – at least not in my experience.

In closing, let me state that before heading over to Golden to be ill used by the staff at Golden City Brewery, I sampled a bomber of their Mad Molly’s Brown Ale. Here are my notes, verbatim (remember, I jotted these before heading out to find Golden City Brewery):

Smells of chocolate in the bottle. Pours whiskey brown with a thin but respectable head. It’s either too carbonated or I’m using the wrong glass or both. Slightly nutty, vaguely chemical. Thin mouth feel means it works on a hot day. Not great. 4 or 5

So the one GCB beer that I did manage to purchase (at a liquor store) was okay – let’s say mediocre. But get this straight: It’s okay to make mediocre beer, perhaps it’s even okay to make bad beer if you behave like a decent human being, but if you make mediocre beer and you and your staff are jackhole’s to boot, we’re going to have problems.

Check back soon; I’ve got nice things to say about Breckenridge Brewery and Tommyknockers Brewery!

Colorado Trip

Dad Gum! This Is A Long Post!

My work as a low-level government functionary provides a single perk for which I have been constantly grateful ‘lo this past decade or more: ample vacation time. I accrue damned near 8 hours of vacation time every pay period! Mrs. Beer Rant, eh, not so much. Consequently, I found myself in Colorado by myself a couple of weeks ago. My primary purpose was to attend the annual reunion of the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy, but with kinfolk scattered across the state, I enjoyed family company as well. Oh, and beer, too.

Normally, a visit to Colorado is a mixed blessing for me in that I’m always thrilled to be there and sad to leave. This time around, with temperatures dipping into the teens and the roads iced up, I wasn’t so sorry to hop that plane once my nine-day visit was over. (Naturally, the weather cleared up the following week and Denver once again basked under 70 degree sun, but that’s Colorado for you.)

Of course, if you’re one of the few folks likely to even read this post, you’re not likely to care much for stories of my having scrolled through old newspapers on microfilm in the library across the street from the Tommyknocker brewery in Idaho Springs. You’re likely to scroll through any account I might post about shooting pool with my brother-in-law, even if I make mention of the pitchers of Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale that we enjoyed while he systematically dismantled my sensitive billiard ego.

So, here’s the straight beer dope from Colorado:

I didn’t set foot in any breweries, though I did snap a picture of the sign painter touching up the Tommyknocker sign. The weather was so dicey during my stay; I preferred to drink at my sister’s house or in the warming environs of the local pool hall, with a few quick samplings made in a hotel room during the CCC reunion to round out the tasting notes.

By my rough count I sampled 13 new beers, mostly Colorado product and mostly singles, which doesn’t make for decent commentary. (Someone has posted a set of “rules” for beer sampling and one of them cautions against forming an opinion about a beer after only a single sample. Which is why I don’t really “rate” beers here, right.)

Haunting Baker Street
My sister and her husband weren’t home when I arrived at their place, so I ambled around the corner to the Baker Street Pub for lunch and some beer. The waitress drew my attention to a sale on Guinness 250 on draft, which was being offered for the bargain basement price of 2 bucks a pint. “Fill ‘er up says I.” I have to admit that Guinness 250 tastes better on draft, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Perhaps it was the cut-rate price, too. At any rate, I liked it enough to have another one a few days later during a follow on visit.

With the first glass of Guinness 250 gone and still facing half a plate of bangers and mash, I ordered a glass of New Belgium’s Hoptoberfest, which must be some sort of locally protected secret because when I took my seat at the pub I made a point of asking the waitress what seasonals were currently available and all she offered was Sam Adams Octoberfest. (I shouldn’t beef too much; at least my waitress clued me in to the Guinness 250 sale, right?) Lucky for me I overheard another waitress telling other patrons about the Hoptoberfest. Well, sort of lucky. I was expecting something on the order of a marzen but this one arrived lager thin and only slightly darker than a Bud or a Coors. The hop smell is right up front with this one and the taste is hoppy and sweet, reminding me of another beer that I’m still unable to recall. Hoptoberfest is decidedly unlike any other New Belgium offering I’ve had in the past.

I paid a second visit to Baker Street Pub with my brother-in-law later in my stay and as we watched the Denver/Dallas football game I enjoyed a glass of the Baker Street Nut Brown ale, which smells a bit of maple or molasses and tastes great. This one would be too sweet to pound as a session beer. During the same stop I had a glass of Paulaner Hefeweizen, which arrived a cloudy light yellow color with no citrus attached per my instructions to the bartend-ress (who very kindly asked me if I wanted an orange or lemon). This hefe tastes vaguely of Hoegaarden but not as bad.

Drinking On The Kinfolk’s Couch
For light drinking around the house, I picked up a six pack of Great Divide Brewing's Samurai Rice Ale and a six pack of Grand Lake Brewing's Stumpjumper IPA. I found myself turning to these during my short stops by the family place, usually in the evenings between 8 and 10 pm after travels up Clear Creek Canyon or to top off a day with the CCC boys at the reunion.

As for the Samurai Rice Ale, in addition to really cool label graphics, the beer had a pleasant sweet grain smell and taste with a surprisingly light mouthfeel for an unfiltered beer. I will definitely seek this one out again – especially when the weather turns hot again. The Stumpjumper IPA was also a pleasant surprise. I’d not ever heard of Grand Lake Brewing before and I considered a jaunt over Berthoud Pass to pay them a visit but glitchy weather and a full schedule dictated otherwise. (I did drive to the summit of Berthoud Pass during my visit, but only because I worked on that road back in 1988.) The Stumpjumper poured with a sweet, piney smell that seemed right for an IPA. The taste was sweet, grainy, sour and piney if a beer can be all those things at once. The taste was almost too sweet for an IPA, seeming more like a hopped up pale ale instead. Still, a great effort by an evidently small, remote brewer. It’s just unfortunate they haven’t broken into the Arizona market yet, but judging from their website, it would seem they’ve had some growing pains recently. If you’re in an area where you can buy Grand Lakes beer – BUY IT.

To round things out around the homestead, I picked up a bomber of Breckenridge Brewing's Small Batch Imperial Porter Porter, which I purposely purchased one evening as I headed home in the face of an impending storm. Knowing the weather was about to turn decidedly winter-like, I figured a nice porter or stout was definitely in order. (I ended up scraping ice off the windshield of my rental car with a Gordon Biersh card the next morning.) The Porter Porter has an alcohol bite up front and is rather acidic tasting and it definitely warms going down. Though it isn’t an outstanding porter, it does represent the imperial style well enough.


I Drink Alone, and Sometimes, Not
I hit Lucky Strike Lanes for happy hour one afternoon and, in the process sampled some 2-for-1 beers that included Odell Brewing's Easy Street Wheat. The bartend-ress compared this one to Blue Moon, but Easy Street arrived smelling slightly alcoholic, so I’d describe it as Blue Moon’s slightly more aggressive sister, tasting more of wheat without the spice of Blue Moon. They may be related somehow, but they’re distinctly different. (For the record, I’d originally ordered an Odell’s 90 Shilling, but Lucky Strike evidently doesn’t carry that product any longer.) To follow up the Easy Street Wheat, I had a glass of Sam Adam’s October fest and marveled at the beauty of its orange color and nice caramel component. Boston Brewing rarely disappoints.

In another session, with my brother-in-law, we dropped in to Las Margaritas for a bottle or two of Lakefront Brewing's Pumpkin Lager. This one has more spice than pumpkin in the taste but it’s terrific. I made note in my beer notebook (per my brother-in-law’s instructions) that I was enjoying this beer as “a prelude to getting my ass kicked at pool,” which turned out to be a fairly accurate prediction.


Love in a Plastic Cup: Hotel Room Hook Ups
My very own, dear mother was attending the CCC reunion, too and, while I was imposing on my sister and her very patient husband, mom elected to roost at the hotel where the reunion was being held – with the potential for icy roads and the busy reunion schedule, I think that was a wise move on her part.

Knowing I’d have a convenient sampling room near the center of reunion activities, I snagged a few odd beers at a huge liquor store called Tipsy's Liquor World near the hotel. Here in quick riff fashion are those beers:

Fort Collins Brewery
Chocolate Stout
Roasted tasting with only a vague hint of chocolate. Pours dark opaque with a beige-brown head, it’s okay as a stout but weak as a “chocolate stout.”

Odell Brewing
Cutthroat Porter
Smells a bit like Deschutes Porter, and pours opaque with a beige head. Unfortunately, while it may smell like Deschutes Porter it certainly doesn’t taste as good. It finishes with a faint coffee taste. The low, 4.8% abv is a plus in my book.

Boulder Beer
Planet Porter
Poured opaque coffee brown with a beige head and a vague alcohol smell. No roasted, malted or hoppy component. Slightly warming with a hint of coffee at the finish

Great Divide Brewing
Saint Bridget’s Porter
Had no significant smell – perhaps coffee. Certainly had a distinct coffee taste and pours dark coffee color but not opaque with a yellow/beige head.

Tommyknocker Brewing
Maple Nut Brown Ale
Dark tea color with a robust head and a faint but noticeable maple smell. This one offers a good taste with “just enough” maple to make it a contender.

The Civilian Conservation Corps reunion wrapped up, I enjoyed a day or two with my sisters in the Denver area and then hopped the bird to fly back to the Arizona desert. It was a nice trip with just enough of the gold and amber stuff to knock the edge off. Life’s good. Now back to work. No really!

This post has been far too verbose. I’m going to tack on some photos I took during the visit and leave it at that for the time being. If you’ve read this far, you have the patience of a saint or the curiosity of a cat. God bless you.

Up next...Grand Canyon Beer with my nephew and "Closing the Book."

Hot Weather Ramblings

We had some fun at my nephew’s birthday party yesterday – he’s only a couple years younger than me, but he’s seen a lot more, I’ll wager. For the fun of it, I picked up some Boulder Brewing Never Summer Ale and some Deschutes Inversion IPA. Given that the room was filled with a bunch of displaced Coloradoans, I’m not surprised that the Never Summer Ale went over a bit bigger. Nevertheless, I’m left with a couple and I’m tossing them back as I jot this post.

I am surprised to see this is their version of a winter seasonal…wha’? It’s really good and I think I’ve blogged it before so I won’t go much into it except to say it’s malty, tastes like bread and finishes dry.

I just like the name – Never Summer Ale – because it conjures up images of a past life spent in Colorado, and a failed attempt at a second life there after military service. You can’t go back folks. But you can pine away, living off the false recollection of what a place was and will never be again. What I do know is that it’s hotter than hell here at Beer Rant HQ and it’s significantly cooler up in the high country in a little place called Clear Creek County, Colorado.

On the other hand, come December, some place with a name like “Winterhaven” will seem awfully nice, too. It brings to mind something that a very wise fellow told me when I was in the army: “As a rule, man’s a fool. When it’s hot, he wants it not, when it’s not, he wants it hot.” (That guy rose to the rank of major general. I think he’s pretty smart.)

Cut ‘em Some Slack
I think we give the macro brewers too much grief – they probably don’t notice anyway – but we’re a bit hypocritical when it comes to the standards we set for the Miller/Coors/Bud conglomerates versus what we let some of the small fry get away with. Budweiser was excoriated for calling one of their beers “drinkable” in a recent ad campaign. Well, since the advent of that little goof, and the resulting web explosion, I’ve begun paying more attention to what the so-called micro-and craft-brewers are printing on their labels. I see the same sort of inane glittering generalities on labels from craft brewers as well, including the likes of Dogfish Head, too, folks. They characterize their Indian Brown Ale as “clean,” which I take to mean it’s not brewed with water taken from the Ganges River. (C’mon folks. If we’re going to set a standard, let’s have it apply to everyone or just drop it.)

The Dating Game
Speaking of labels: the last issue of Beer magazine had a rather inept article explaining how to read a beer label. (Thank heaven those nice folks at Coors have come up with those temperature sensitive labels so we know when our beer is cold, and thank heaven for the editors of Beer magazine, who will help us decipher the mysterious world of beer labels.) One of the label characteristics covered in the piece was date stamping or freshness dating. Well, again, I’ve begun paying more attention to beer labels lately and I have to say that freshness dates only work if you (meaning the brewers) actually use them. I recently encountered a label (Lost Coast Brewing Raspberry Brown Ale) whereon none of the months of manufacture were “notched.” What am I to take this to mean? It’s a bit like buying a new car battery and not punching the month and year of sale. (Grease monkeys will know what I’m talking about.) Bottom line: Freshness dating is a joke, in both the macro and micro brewing worlds. If consistency isn’t the be all, end all of brewing and beer drinking, then why the hell do we even care when a beer was “born”? Likewise, if we’re going to have a dating system, then let’s stick to it.

Gosh. I didn’t really intend to go all Beer Jerk in this post. I’m really just cranky because of the heat. All the Never Summer Ale is gone. I’ve had a Deschutes Inversion IPA and a Michelob something-or-other and I’m feeling a little better now.

Happy Birthday Dane!

Colorado Trip: A Visit To Del Norte Brewing

While there are a number of things that stand out in my mind after 10 days or so in Colorado and Virginia, including time spent with family and time spent with some cool older gentlemen from the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps, I can say without hesitation that the beer highlight of the trip was paying a visit to Del Norte Brewing in Denver, Colorado.

For me at least Del Norte is really a nod in two directions because I live in between the place where Del Norte beer is crafted and the place that Del Norte beer is attempting to honor with their Mexican style brews.

As I prepared for my visit to Denver I scanned the map over at the Beer Mapping Project, hoping to find a suitable brewpub or brewery near my sister’s house on the west side of Denver. Only one beer venue fell within a 10-mile radius of my base of operations: Del Norte Brewing. I visited their website and dropped them an email, stating that I’d be interested in paying them a visit. I received a kind response, indicating that, while they don’t have a taproom or retail space, I’d be more than welcome to drop by the brewery for a tour and chat. The message indicated that they expected to be bottling during my visit. Thrilled, I printed the email, along with the phone numbers that were provided and packed them in my luggage.

If you don’t believe that beer folk are good folk then I’d suggest you spend a few minutes chatting with Jack Sosebee, whose Del Norte Brewing Company business card reads “Owner/Brewer.” I’d add “Beer Ambassador” to that job title, too. I called him at about 9:00 on a Sunday morning and by 10:30 I was walking into a nondescript warehouse space in a mixed use light industrial/residential area not too far from the University of Denver. Within minutes of my arrival I had a sample of Del Norte’s beer in my hand as we strolled through the compact brewing facility.

From the very start our talk was conversational, light and friendly; just two beer fans chewing the fat. No doubt my interest in beer lies more in the product than in the process, but when you’ve got someone who’s as enthusiastic about his work as Jack Sosebee seems to be, well, it’s all a package that seems to fit. (There’s a Madison Avenue jingle in there somewhere, I know it.) Jack and his business partner Joseph Fox are striving to bring back the traditional Mexican style of beer that has largely disappeared from the United States market in the last decade. I asked Jack if this exodus might be due to the rise of the locally brewed craft beer market in the U.S. and he allowed as that might be one reason while graciously admitting he’d never really thought of it in those terms. Jack pointed out that beer traveling north from Mexico typically arrives damaged, having languished on one loading dock or another for days and weeks before hitting shelves in the States. Faced with consistently poor quality imported brews, American beer drinkers may simply have turned away from those traditional Mexican style beers. Whatever the reason for the void, Del Norte Brewing seems perfectly willing to fill the niche.

I asked Jack what sets Mexican style beer apart from beers that we’re traditionally familiar with here in the U.S. If I may condense his answer into a single word, that word would be “corn.” (You won’t find this on the Wikipedia page for Beer in Mexico.) Corn is a decidedly American addition to the brewing process, making its appearance on the brewing scene in the late 1860s. Back then brewers learned that, although it was more expensive than all-malt Bavarian brewing, using corn or rice produced a lager with an attractive yellow color and favorable characteristics in body and head. The folks at Del Norte revisit this philosophy and succeed in producing beers that satisfy both the eye and the palate.

Orale, Del Norte’s Mexican style lager pours a nice golden color (bet it’s the corn) with a white head and there’s a sweet smell to it. The taste hints of grain (the corn again, I’d bet) with a mildly dry finish. It strikes me as more hoppy than, say a Budweiser and more carbonated than your run-of-the mill beers with a very slight alcohol bite to it.

Manana is Del Norte’s Mexican style amber lager and to me it smells faintly of banana bread, pouring an attractive dark tea color with a straw colored head. There’s the taste of bread in there with a hint of roasted grain and the mouth feel is heavier than the Orale.

Both Orale and Manana are terrific session beers and no doubt they would compliment a plate of enchiladas or carne asada. Of the two, I prefer Manana but that’s no doubt a reflection of my general preference for darker beers in general.

Jack is a font of Mexican-style beer knowledge and that passion translates into an unusual collecting hobby. While discussing their label design – oval, two label front and back – Jack confessed to having amassed a collection of some 900 Mexican beer labels. To me it’s proof that we should all decide what we love and work at that as much and for as long as we are able.

If our conversation was moving along smoothly, the same can’t be said for the labeling machine on the day of my visit. On the phone Jack mentioned that the line was acting up (“glitchy” was the word he used, I think) and when I arrived at the shop, nothing had changed. Indeed, as it turned out, the day’s bottling work was cancelled, with the Del Norte crew (five or so by my count) vowing to get with the manufacturer of the bottling equipment to see if a solution could be found so that bottling might resume later in the week. Through all this, Jack had a smile on his face, chatting amiably with me about Del Norte beer, craft beer, Colorado beer, Mexican beer and the vagaries of trying to make a go of it in a crowded craft beer market.

There are plans for seasonal beers in the future and Jack anticipates they’ll outgrow their current warehouse manufacturing setup sooner rather than later – even if the square footage continues to be sufficient, the capacity of their brewing equipment will need to increase to keep up with what they hope will be continued growing demand. There are plans to expand distribution outside of Colorado as well and one can only wish them all the best luck. Certainly they have the public relations skills they need, because I couldn’t have felt more welcome during my visit. If you’re in Colorado, I encourage you to visit the Del Norte Brewing website to find out where their beers are available. If you live elsewhere, as I do, then I can only suggest that you remain patient, all the while hoping that some day soon you’ll see Orale and Manana on tap, or in a retail outlet near you.

The Del Norte Brewing Crew

Mike Maynard, Sales & Distribution, Joseph Fox, Owner/Brewer, Jack Sosebee, Owner/Brewer

Update:
I dropped Jack an email and hit him with a couple of follow up questions before posting this story. Jack reports that the day after my visit, they contacted the manufacturer of the bottling machinery and got the glitch worked out. Seems the manufacturer had mis-wired one of the machines components. Joe worked the necessary fix and the Del Norte line was up and bottling the next weekend.

When asked where he thinks Del Norte Brewing will be in 5 years, Jack said he thinks they’ll be in a new facility, with a greater brewing capacity, distributing their beer not only throughout Colorado but also around the Southwest (west Texas to southern California, specifically). Jack thinks Del Norte will still be producing their flagship beers Orale and Manana, a couple of seasonal beers, and other beers that reflect the variety of beers available throughout Mexico. Jack finished his answer to this question by predicting they’ll still be having fun, and who’s going to argue with a prediction like that?

Finally, when asked about the Great American Beer Festival taking place in Denver this week, Jack said that yes, Del Norte Brewing would be there, “hoping a lot of people have a chance to enjoy our beer with us.”
That’s my hope too.