Beer Thoughts: Twisted Pine Roots Revival Carrot IPA

Beer Info:
Twisted Pine started a series of beers called Farm to Foam which will feature beers that are 100% Colorado made. The "brewers aim to utilize not only locally grown grain and hops, but 'fruits, roots, seeds, and vegetables that spring from Colorado soil as well." There will be 2-4 per year, and the first is Roots Revival Carrot IPA, made for the 25th Anniversary of the Boulder Farmer's Market. It "brewed with barley and wheat grown in Alamosa, Cascade hops from the Uncompahgre Valley, Crystal hops from Niwot and organic carrots harvested less than 15 miles from the brewery." The carrots were incorporated into the mash. The beer comes in 750ml bottles, and sits at 6.9% ABV.

Beer Thoughts:
You can probably tell, due to Beers Made By Walking, and certain comments I've made about organic, local, and indigenous

Announcing the Final Round of Battle of the Brewers

Battle of the Brewers: Final Round
Sat. June 23 / 4pm Sharp! / $5 cash
Brewer's Republic / 112 N. Nevada, Colorado Springs
Facebook Event Page

We started with eight local breweries, each brewer was given two random ingredients to add to a beer, you did a blind tasting of all the beers and decided which ones were best and which breweries advanced to the next round. We're now at the third and final round, the last two brewers are duking it out on June 23rd. We congratulate Shamrock Brewing and Lone Tree Brewing on getting this point, your beers have been wonderful thus far, but only one brewer will win in the end. What are the two random ingredients for the beer this time? A bottle of wine per 5 gallons of beer, and the use of wood (but not oak).

Join us on Saturday, June 23rd at 4pm. You will get to decide, in a blind tasting, which beer is best and who will be crowned the 2011 Battle of the Brewers Champion. For $5 you will get a sample of each beer, one vote, a chance to win some door prizes AND a half pint of your choosing from two specialty kegs. It's going to be a good time, We'll see you there!

Wondering what the previous rounds were like? You can see the info here and here and our video recap.
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Featured Beer Photo of the Week - Kissmeyer Brewing

Photo by Daniel Flanders. Kissmeyer Beer / Denied Entry

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Beer Thoughts: New Belgium Tart Lychee

We're a bit behind on our Beer Thoughts because we contemplated some new formatting for beer reviews but it hasn't really worked out quite yet. So, for now, we'll stick with our old format. Hope you don't mind!

Beer Info:
From New Belgium: "New Belgium's sweet and sour Tart Lychee highlights the unique lychee fruit, which is balanced alongside a wood-aged sour beer. It’s brewed with pale malt, caramel-80, carapils, malted wheat and oats, then spiced with lychee fruit and a touch of cinnamon." The bottle reads that 56% of the beer was aged in oak, and the other 44% is the ale brewed with Lychee and Cinnamon. It sits at 7.5% ABV.

Beer Thoughts:
The beer pours a light orange, slightly cloudy with a lovely white and foamy head. The aroma is of orange, peaches, and is really fruity. Eric believes he gets a little hint of cinnamon in the nose, which

3 Floyd's Dark Lord Day and So Much More

[This post is the first from Scott Simmons, a homebrewer and friend of ours. Here he chronicles his trek to Dark Lord Day, a festival that brings together beer geeks from all over the country to celebrate the release of one specific beer (in multiple variations). But in all honesty, the festival is so much more than the release of one beer...So, hope you enjoy this, we'll see more posts from Scott in time.]

The pilgrimage to 3 Floyd’s annual Dark Lord Day, located in Munster, Indiana, began with an online ticket sale that sold six thousand tickets in just one minute. Mind Blown. This was the first sign that we were in for something very serious. After that eye opening experience, the true preparation began with hotel rooms, other logistics, but most importantly online beer trading.

Beer Advocate is a site that a lot of people use for rating beer, forums on homebrewing, and lots of other really nerdy beer stuff. Most important to me is a forum called ISO:FT (In Search Of: For Trade). This is a place where you can offer up some beer you have (FT) for some beer that another person might have that they want to trade for your beer (ISO). It’s a lot like an online adult version of trading baseball cards, pogs, magic cards, etc… It gets real nerdy, real quick. I began setting up in-person trades for stops along the way, stops at Dark Lord Day (DLD), and stops on the way home. I was able to land some great beers that we would not have access to normally. Luckily, Colorado makes some great beer and some of it trades pretty well.

Meet the Brewer: Elevation Beer Co.

Meet the Brewer: Elevation Beer Co.
June 21st / 6:30pm / Pay Per Pint
Front Range BBQ / 2330 West Colorado Ave, Colorado Springs
Facebook Event Page

Elevation Beer Co. is one of the newest breweries in Colorado (they aren't even a month old yet!) but we got our first taste of Elevation at the Saison Festival. We were very impressed with the Saison and Farmhouse Ales they brought to town and we knew we needed to bring these guys in for a Meet the Brewer session. It is quite apparent that this brewery is experimenting, having loads of fun, and they're doing it right too. The brewery is located in Poncha Springs, just outside Salida, and I bet they'll become a regular stopping point, for many of us Colorado Springers, on our drives into the mountains. Come celebrate this new brewery, meet brewer Christian Koch, he's bringing some fun and experimental beers, as well as a couple of the flagships. Check out the list of beers below!

Twisted Pine releases a Carrot IPA

The above photo, taken from Colorado Daily, depicts a beer called Roots Revival Carrot IPA. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, and I doubted the beer would taste any good. BUT then I saw it was from Twisted Pine in Boulder and I changed my mind about the whole thing. Twisted Pine makes some good beer, but they also make some good strange beers. For example, at our anniversary party they brought down a beer called Poison Fish, which had ginger, wasabi, horseradish root, and mustard seed. The beer was actually really good. They also make a beer with the Ghost chili, the hottest beer I've ever had, which I hesitate to say is good, but certainly a hell of a lot of fun.

2000 Breweries Isn't All We've Got

The Brewer's Association just released a statement that we've hit 2000 US Craft breweries. There are 2051 breweries, 51 of them are domestic, and the 2000 number doesn't include contract brewers, just actual physical breweries. Whoazas!

As we've approached B2K many people have asked if we're going to hit some sort of saturation point and my thought has always been that this probably won't happen until we can all conveniently walk to our nearest brewery. Perhaps I am wrong on this, but beer is a social drink and the less I have to drive to drink it, the more likely I am to grab a pal and consume it. Perhaps we'll see the market become so full that the newer folks, the newest innovators that want to start great new breweries won't be as welcomed. That would be a loss.

On our roadtrip last week we found that not only are there all sorts of new breweries opening up (we must have visited ten breweries that opened in the last two years), but the new breweries and old breweries alike are expanding. 1 barrel brewers moving to 7 barrels, 7 barrels to 15, 12 barrels to 30. A few breweries are opening up entire new production facilities. Even here in Colorado Springs I know of four breweries that are expanding, doubling their capacity (or more), and Trinity just finished their expansion.

One thing I heard a lot from the newer breweries is "We just can't get the type of hop we want to make the type of IPA we want." Now, that's a situation to think about. Perhaps the expansion and opening of breweries is outpacing the ability to produce raw beer ingredients. One brewery said there was a two year wait-list for a certain type of hop. I had never thought about it until last week, but perhaps expansions will hasten the saturation point, if there is to be one, and unfortunately that will not do well for my idyllic vision of "walkable breweries for all."

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Front Range Beer Trip Day 1: AC Golden

Last week Isaac and I were able to make a pretty epic beer journey up the Front Range to see a number of breweries. Because we've been organizing more and more events we wanted to stop in to a few places and introduce ourselves. Some folks we have met a few times and we wanted to re-connect, or we've just chatted over email, and some breweries were brand new and we wanted to see how things were going. By the end of each day we were pretty exhausted and by the fourth day we actually had to cut our trip short because we had hit a mental and physical barrier and couldn't drink any more beer. So, for the next few days I plan to make a post, maybe two posts, for each day of the trip.

Troy Casey in the hidden barrel room at AC Golden

The journey starts in the town of Golden, Colorado at AC Golden. We have talked about Troy Casey and AC Golden a few times in this blog. The brewery makes some extraordinary beer, they won a Silver in the American Brett Style category in the World Beer Cup this year, and they have won a few awards for the Colorado Native. At the Craft Lager Fest and the Saison Festival, they proved to have some of my favorite beers of the day. Even during our visit I was overwhelmingly impressed with the brewery, the playful freedom the brewers experienced, and their dedication to finesse. The thing is,

Pikes Peak Brewing to Release A Few Special Bottles

This recently in from Pikes Peak Brewing:

"On June 5th @6p we will release the Summit House Barrel Stout in 750mL bottles! They are each signed and numbered. Only 150; first come/first serve. This will also mark the first Tuesday we are open."

These are the first bottles we've seen from PPBC, and this is an exciting release. I'm not sure the price. The Summit House Barrel Stout is very tasty, I've had it a couple times on tap at the brewery. It's a thick, rich and oaky stout aged in whiskey barrels and if I remember correctly, sits right about 8.9% or 9%. It's a fantastic beer, that deserves recognition with some of the best of the boozy and complex stouts we like to buy.

These will probably sell out on the night of the event so if you're wanting one, you should get there as early as possible. Congrats to Pikes Peak on this move.
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Potential Brewery in Manitou

We just got word from Matthew in the CS Indy that there may be a brewery in planning in Manitou. We've talked amongst friends that the first brewery in that little town is LONG overdue and will probably make a killing. I'll direct your attention to the CS Indy article, which has more information, but here's a few quotes I pulled:

It appears that Kevin LeGrande of LeGrande Accents Boutique — also owner of the Promenade Building at 725 Manitou Ave. — has notions to open a brewery at that site in partnership with another Colorado brewing outfit, yet to be named.

As the agenda documents outline, the brewery would only allow on-site consumption (and guest food to be brought in by clientele). It would not bottle or can, and would keep limited nighttime hours, closing by 10 p.m.

We'll find out more information if we can and get that to you as soon as possible.

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Website for Beers Made By Walking

Yesterday we got the website up for Beers Made By Walking. If you'd like to follow what we're doing there, go check it out. You can follow links to the facebook and twitter pages too. We'll of course keep you posted on all things BMBW in Colorado Springs, but we're also taking the program up to Denver, and to Oregon and Washington so the site will host all those updates. We'll have more news on the Colorado Springs development in a week or two.
Cheers!

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Report from the Beer vs. Wine Dinner

A few weeks ago I made a post about a Beer vs. Wine dinner that our pal Rich Mock was helping organize. The event, technically called the "He Said Beer, She Said Wine" dinner has come and gone and Rich has written up a summary that I think would be fun to post here. Take a look, and if this is of interest to you, let me know and we'll make sure Rich gets your info and that you're invited to any future similar events. Here's the news from Rich:

Dat's Italian

Brew Bros members Axe and Dino worked the beer end of this dinner based on the book by Sam Calagione, owner of Dogfish Head Brewery, and Marnie Olds, sommelier. Thanks to the proprietors, JoAnn and Dennis, for indulging us. The goal was to get everyone to try new and exciting combinations. The restaurant is more of a wine house with most of the Dat’s Italian wine dinner regulars there but there were some closet beer fans. We chose mainstream Colorado craft beers from a variety of our ‘Napa Valley’ craft breweries to compete against Italian wines.

A Friendly Reminder about Battle of the Brewers this Saturday!

 

Battle of the Brewers: Round 2
Saturday, May 19th / 4pm SHARP! 
At Brewer's Republic / 112 N. Nevada, Colorado Springs 
$10 cash
Facebook Event Page

Round Two of Battle of the Brewers is just around the corner. Last time we brought you eight local brewers, we put the brewers into brackets, we chose sixteen random ingredients, and you were the judge for the beers. It was a blast. You selected your four favorite beers in a blind tasting and now the winners of round one are paired up against each other. They've been working endlessly to perfect this round's offering.

On May 19th, join us for Round Two, where once again you'll be the judge. Be there at 4pm SHARP to participate. When the round is over we will announce the winners for the finals and randomly select the two ingredients. For $10 you will get a sample tray with four beers AND you will get a 10oz pour of a beer from a specialty keg.

The Players:
Lone Tree vs. Phantom Canyon (Pineapple and Honey)
Rockyard vs. Shamrock (Almonds and Ginger)

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American Craft Beer Week 2012 in our region

This week, May 14-20, 2012, is American Craft Beer Week. Across the country breweries and beer spots create wonderful events that bring folks together to have a good time and celebrate the growing industry. We have a few things going on this week, whether organizers new it was part of Craft Beer Week or not, we'll include it because they coincide. Perhaps other events will pop up and I'll try to get those added. Check these event out, hope to see you there! Especially hope to see you at our event Battle of the Brewers - Part 2. Regardless, stop at your local beer spot and have a pint!

Historic Self-Guided Beer Crawl in Colorado Springs

I just discovered this self-guided beer crawl, created by the City of Colorado Springs Historic Preservation Board. Follow the links below to download the pamphlet, which has some brief information about each featured bar. The crawl leads you through some of downtown's (and near downtown) oldest buildings that have been turned into bars/pubs/breweries. This was created for the month of May, National Preservation Month, but I imagine you're more than welcome to give yourself this self-guided tour any time. If you visit six out of the ten locations, get your postcard stamped by the bartender, you can be entered to win gift cards and other things. It may be interesting to organize an official public tour someday, one that has a bit more information. I think I'll give this a shot, anybody else want to do it too?

The bars:
I'll mark in bold the places I'd go to, based on beer selection, if I had to pick six.

Jack Quinn's, The Rabbit Hole, Johnny's Navajo Hogan, MacKenzie's Chop House, Old Chicago, The Ritz, Sonterra/Slayton's, Phantom Canyon Brewing, and Southside Johnny's.

Info:
Visit SpringsGov for information on the National Preservation Month
You can download the Pub Crawl Map there, or just click here.

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A Few Last Calls Tonight

Tonight we'll see a few last calls. If you can, make some time to head down to Trinity and/or Bristol.

At Trinity Brewing:
Slap Yer Mammy will have a special release party tonight starting at 5pm. This is the last time there will be a special release party for this beer...not because they won't be making it again, but because it will always be on tap from now on! So, this is the last release party for this wonderful Double IPA.

At Bristol Brewing:
Laura Long, who has done some wonderful work at Bristol, keeping the public informed on all things happening with the brewery, is moving on and is taking a job for GIVE! The Indy's year end marketing and philanthropy campaign. Come during Bristol happy hour and help waive her off at 5pm.

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Do People In This Town Like Beer Or Something?

We all know Bristol is expanding, Trinity just finished up their expansion, Colorado Mountain Brewery is expanding, just heard on the Gazette that Phantom Canyon Brewing is expanding.

I guess people in this town like to drink?

Focus on the Beer Community Spotlight: Kirk Schipke

We strive to emphasize not only beer on this blog but also the community that helps shape the beer scene in the Colorado Springs region. The people involved with making this area a better beer scene are very important to us. We are starting a new series highlighting special people in this community that help raise awareness of craft beer - beer servers, brewers, beer reps, restaurant owners, beer writers, homebrewers, etc. If you would like to nominate someone for this series, shoot us an email.

Focus on the Beer Community Spotlight: Kirk Schipke

Big Changes to Judge Baldwin's Brewing

I got wind that Judge Baldwin's, Colorado Springs' oldest brewery, had put an end to beer-making, so yesterday I visited and asked a few questions. This was the second time I'd been in and to be honest I was surprised at the homey feeling of the place, almost feeling a bit like a British pub, although obviously not as old. From the front of the building, and based on the knowledge that the place is a part of the Hilton Hotel, it was hard to know what to expect. For some reason I almost had in mind some cafeteria style place, I really don't know why I thought that. But in actuality this could make a reasonably comfortable place to have a beer.

I talked with Aaron Duff the restaurant manager. He confirmed that indeed Judge Baldwin's was no longer making beer. As of yesterday, the only JB beer still on tap was the Yardwork Pale Ale, and it

Clarifications on Breckenridge Brewery's Sticky Situation

Today the Denver Business Journal reported that Breckenridge Brewery is looking to expand out of state due to Colorado laws that prohibit an in-state expansion. We posted a link on our FB page to the Denver Business Journal article that brought it to our attention, but I thought I'd share it here too in case you didn't see it. I also want to try to wrap my head around all this and put a bunch of information, from multiple articles all on one page, and to clarify a few questions in my head. A good amount of the information here is from the Denver Business Journal, but I also borrowed from Westword, and I quote from emails with Breckenridge Brewery and the Colorado Beer Distributors Association.

Things seem to be going well for our newest brewery

The other day I emailed with Jeff at Great Storm Brewing and he let me know that things have been going quite well over at the new brewery. They've been keeping pretty busy and things seem healthy. That's wonderful news. Great Storm, if you haven't already heard, is Colorado Springs' newest brewery, they opened in March. They're a nanobrewery, producing one barrel batches of beer at a time... Here's the latest from Jeff:

Chit Chat Presentation: Homebrewing and Perfect Pizzas

Tomorrow night I'm giving a talk on homebrew culture and my artwork. I just realized I never posted about this but I thought I had. If you came to my presentation the other night, you can still come to this one! It will be a different talk, there will be beer and some food. The talk is a part of the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art series called Chit Chat. Each week there are two speakers that talk about contemporary culture and DIY topics. I'll be talking alongside someone from Pizza Gypsy, a mobile brick-oven pizzeria. Should be a ton of fun.

Chit Chat
Gallery of Contemporary Art
7-8:30pm / Reception at 6:30 with snacks/drinks
121 S. Tejon (in Plaza of the Rockies building)
Suggested Donations


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Colorado Brewers Take Home 27 World Beer Cup Medals

Last week brewers from around the world gathered together for a week of seminars and talks in San Diego. The event culminates in the biennial award ceremony for the World Beer Cup, the most prestigious awards in the beer industry. This year, the Brewer's Association reported there were 799 breweries participating, from 57 different countries. There were 95 beer styles to be judged and 3,921 beers entered into those categories. Breweries in the US, make up the largest percentage of entered beers with about 67% of all the entries. That doesn't mean that you're likely to win an award though. US breweries received a total of 208 awards, so the rate of winning an award as a US brewer would be about 7.8%. Your chance goes down of course if your beer is no good. :)

Colorado brewers won a total of 27 awards, so approximately 13% of all the awards won by US brewers. Not bad! I want to give a shout out to some of the breweries and I've also got a complete list of Colorado brewery awards below.

Great Looking Beer Happenings For Your May Calendar

There's a few really cool looking beer events coming up this month and I just want to get them on your radar. Some of them require RSVP, reservations, etc so jumping on it now could be important. There's sure to plenty more coming our way, but these deserve some advance notice:

A Reasonably Disturbing Coors Light Commercial

This commercial was in a survey that I just took about "beer as a gendered space in the media." One of the questions after watching the video is Does the video portray women in a flattering way? Clearly the commercial is meant to be comical, but still I must say there is a misogynist backbone to this thing and women are not portrayed favorably, just as servants and nagging annoyances. I'm not a fan of the commercial.

The survey, prepared by Anne Sugar, a CU Boulder Ph.D candidate, is perhaps a bit slanted toward this direction, but I'd still like to recommend that you spend a couple minutes and fill it out. It might cause you to think differently about beer commercials.

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National Homebrew Day / Big Brew 2012!

Lefty making beer at last year's Big Brew Day

National Homebrew Day is coming up on May 7th, and the Homebrewers Association calls for a Big Brew Day to celebrate on May 5th. Our local homebrew club always has a special brew day for the occasion where basically they cram as many homebrewers into one spot, complete with brewing equipment and ingredients and everyone makes beer at the same time. It's an awesome way to celebrate homebrewing and craft beer. Folks bring food and beer along and it turns out to be a really lovely day. This year both Pikes Peak Brewing and Rocky Mountain Brewing will host, so depending on your location you can choose which one to go to. Even if you don't homebrew, you can head up to the event and learn a lot and have a few homebrews. If you do brew, you should show up! We went last year and snapped a few photos but weren't able to bring our equipment with us. It was a great time.

Big Brew Day
Brewers will probably be set up in both locations by 10am.
Pikes Peak Brewing: 1756 Lake Woodmoor Dr., Monument 
Rocky Mountain Brewery: 625 Paonia St., Colorado Springs

A fun set up by another homebrewer last year.

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