After four years, Vine Street finally got its brewing license on April 4 and brewed Number One the following week; Vine Street also started selling beer to go that day.
On Thursday, Vine Street and its sister locations in Boulder -- the Mountain Sun and the Southern Sun -- will tap Fruit Cake, a Belgian Strong Dark Ale brewed with dried mission figs and Turkish apricots. The 9.2 percent ABV beer was aged in rum barrels for three months; it will be released at 4:20 p.m., also as part of ACBW.
And on Friday, the three pubs will tap the first batch of 2012 Prime Time Pilsner, a pre-Prohibition-style pilsner brewed with flaked maize and Hallertau and Saaz hops. This one "is a light- to medium-bodied lager with with an assertive floral and spicy hop character," the brewery says. It will be tapped at opening.
Vine Street's new brewery is located in a 3,500-square-foot space behind the dining room. It can crank out 5,000 barrels of beer a year (at capacity), about 50 percent more than its sibling locations combined. That capacity will also allow Mountain Sun to offer kegs of its beers to outside accounts on a regular basis for the first time.