GABF Day 1 - Oskar Blues, Avery Brewing Company, Great Divide Brewing

The morning ritual in Denver during the Great American Beer Fest is a stop for Sams #3. This place is a local institution and has been featured on several prominent food shows with TV hosts that I dare not speak their name. In the high Denver altitude having a good base for a day of craft beer drinking is never more important. The effects of just even two beers in the mile high city make an incredible difference on the body. A greasy spoon before the day is a must, and Sams #3 is the base for a very successful day.

We met up with Bob Mack from World Class Beer and he graciously let us tag along with him for a day of brewery hopping before the first evening session. Our first stop was the original spot for Oskar Blues Brewing Company in Lyons, CO. I would say that most craft beer people are well acquainted with Oskar Blues. They have really made a big impact in the world of craft canned beer. They were certainly early adopters of craft can beer, and they were very successful with that model. The restaurant is set up like a tri-level house. You walk in the front door and go downstairs to the bottom bar, and then upstairs for more seating and the upstairs bar. The blues theme is always carried throughout the restaurant and the on the menu. I like when a place does unique beers just for the brewpub, and Oskar Blues didn’t disappoint. We had their Oktoberfest, Dale’s Deviant DIPA, and my personal favorite Honey Badger smoked porter. Here is what the brewery says about it:

“This nasty little ale is made with Crisp Maris Otter pale malt, Gambrinus Honey Malt, roasted barley, chocolate malt and dark crystal malt along with a heaping, meaty dose of Oskar Blues home smoked malt (no kidding; there's meat in it) and generously hopped with Columbus all the way through the boil. A huge dollop of Lyons Local Madhava Wildflower Honey at the end of the boil takes it up a notch.

Honey Badger don't care; he just drinks the s**t up. Your nose will be attacked with a plume of cherry wood while your palate is tsunamied with rich chocolatey-caramel flavors and campfire smoke. Served at locally at Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids (Longmont) and Grill & Brew (Lyons) with an OB Hops & Heifers Farm meat stick. About 6% ABV.

It was delicious. I love smoke beer, and this beer was really tasty. I am very happy to have gotten to try this one. If you haven’t seen the Honey Bader video it is worth a few minutes of your time.

Avery Brewing Company

Our next stop was in Boulder at Avery Brewing Company. Hopefully readers have had Avery beer, but they won’t be coming to Indiana anymore. They have contracted their distribution operations and have pulled out of Indiana recently. You can still find some of their bigger beers on the shelves around town though.

The first thing that struck me about Avery is their location. If you thought Three Floyd’s was in an industrial park they don’t hold a candle to what Avery has going on. Avery occupies multiple business fronts along the same line of warehousing buildings. I can’t imagine some of the logistical nightmares that happen. The bottling line and canning line for instance are not connected to the brewery, so beer has to be transported to each place for the canning and packing lines.

Avery was rocking yesterday while we were there. It was a very good time to see and hang out with so many beer lovers that were there getting oiled up before the first GABF session that night. Avery has a pretty large barrel program and they had several sours on tap in addition to several brew-pub only releases. Rod started that day with a wonderful sour called Eremita that had been aged in cabernet and zinfandel barrels. This was the type of sour that you can tell of the expertise of barrel aging and blending. Truly one of the best sours I’ve recently had. I started my day with Lilikoi Mahu. I *think* this was a Beglian Wit base with tons of passion fruit added to it. It is really hot in Denver right now, and I thought this beer was just about perfect for the day and time. I had been drinking all morning and this was refreshing, tart, and was a nice change of pace. We moved onto the barrel room and kept on having some one offs and interesting beers. We found an interesting story about how Avery is still in business. At one point they were close to bankruptcy and Adam Avery decided he was going to put out a beer that he enjoyed drinking, and he put out Hog Heaven barley wine. He thought it wouldn’t sell and put a pig flying on the label, but that was the beer that helped to resurrect the brewery into the business of today. I drank a little bit of Avery’s beers when they were in Indiana, but after my brewery visit I left feeling different about them. I hope they will return to Indiana in the future.

Great Divide

We headed back into Denver and stopped at Great Divide. Last year Great Divide didn’t have a very big tap room, but they have since expanded the tap room, and that is very much a very welcome addition to the tap room. The tap room was pouring all of their beers for very reasonable prices. All pints were $4 bucks and samples were $1 dollar. I am huge fan of their Belgo-Yeti that came out recently.

A big thanks to Bob Mack, Grant Curlow, and Bill Jackson for letting us tag along for the day.

GABF 2009 Road Trip: Avery again and Great Divide

As we left Boulder County, we decided to stop in at Avery one last time before moving our base of operations to Denver. The main reason for our return to Avery was the tapping of 3 sour experiments to coincide with the release of Sui Generis (Barrel Aged Series #2). Unfortunately since Sui Generis didn't go on sale until 3PM, we weren't able to pick any up. At least there was plenty of sour beer to be had on tap!


Good Sally
Salvation mixed with Sour Blend 1 and aged in Cabernet barrels

Good Sally both looks and smells like a lambic, with its hazy yellow hue and lemon, apple and pear aroma that is mixed into a nose-shocking acidity. With a nose this strong, I definitely anticipated a sourness to back it up. I was quite surprised when the sour character was actually subdued. This beer came across as a Belgian Blonde with a tinge of sourness and a creamy mouthfeel. Notes of limeade and green apple helped things diverge from style and create a nice, refreshing summer beer.


Port Alter Boy
Reverend mixed with Sour Blend 1 and aged in Port barrels

This variation of Reverend has a nice clear appearance and looks like it was filtered somewhat. When you first take a sniff of this complex ale you get lots of dried fruits with a hint of pucker. The first taste is not surprising that you get lots of apricot, plum and just a little hint of dried strawberries. It finishes with just a little bit of sour pucker to make the drinker want a little more. It's not a crazy sour beer but it's definitely delicious.

Opus Alter Boy
Reverend mixed with Sour Blend 2 and aged in Cabernet barrels

This variation on Reverend created a number of savory characteristics. The nose was faint with subtle raspberry notes complimented by rose and lavender aromatics. Despite the soft nose, the sourness of this beer was huge. When pushing past the sharp tartness, and interesting combination of rhubarb, sun dried tomatoes, white grapes, apples and black pepper came through. The sun dried tomatoes and black pepper helped define this beer as a Saison with a massively amped up sour level.





Once we arrived in Denver, we decided to head out to Great Divide just before Happy Hour. Even though we had a common cast of characters we kept running in to in Boulder County, this was probably the first time when it felt like GABF was in full swing. We pushed our way into the super crowded tap room and proceded to try Les Claymore (a sour bourbon barrel aged Claymore), a bourbon barrel aged Claymore and a Berliner Weisse.


We followed these samples up with their new Wet Hop Pale Ale and Hoss. The Wet Hop was pretty much as you would imagine, and quite tasty. We agreed that Hoss tasted like Cherry Coke and that the name was somewhat of a misnomer. For reviewing purposes, however, we decided to go with a couple of the more standard offerings.


Denver Pale Ale

The aroma of this Pale Ale is a friendly balance of spruce, grass and caramel. The grassy hop notes are well balanced with the caramel. The bitterness of this Pale Ale is mild enough to be inviting, but the lemon and grapefruit notes are enough to let hop heads get the most out of the hops. A caramel malt flavor creates a solid base that is heavy enough to balance the beer but doesn't sweeten it to the point of detracting from the hops. I was very impressed with how great the sessionability of this beer was. I could easily drink more than one without getting sick of it and the ABV floats right around 5%. I'll admit this is my first time trying this beer, and after having it at Great Divide I would really like to see it show up on some Indy tap lists.


Samurai

I think I've found a great lawnmower beer for Matt! Samurai is made with rice and pours with a nice pillowy head. It's slightly cloudy in appearance, much like a wheat but is a little more gold in appearance. The nose has hints of cantaloupe and aromatic flowers. It's slightly perfumey but not overpoweringly so. Tastes very light and refreshing while still having a very complex flavor profile. The ABV is right at 4.2% and I've had it before out of bottles when L'Explorateur was still open. This would pare perfectly with sushi or other fish options. I would love to see this more places and think it is a great "gateway" beer for those trying more craft options.