Brewers Association

A Toast to Beer

Colorado beer calendar: Colorado Beer Week meets American Craft Beer Week

In the annual overflow of beer weeks, Colorado Beer Week kicks off today, just two days before American Craft Beer Week begins its run. The former is a series of beery events hosted around town by a private events company. The second is a national orgy of beer activities created and promoted by the ... More >>

Left Hand named a top fifty U.S. brewer; Oskar Blues is second in Colorado

Longmont won big today when the Brewers Association, based just down the road in Boulder, released its annual list of the top fifty biggest craft brewers in the United States. Left Hand Brewing, which was founded in Longmont in 1993, cracked the list for the first time, logging in at number 49. The ... More >>

Colorado beer calendar: IPApril at Rackhouse Pub; barrel-aged beers at Hops & Pie

Craft brewers sold $8.7 billion worth of beer in 2011, up more than 9 percent over the previous year, according to the Boulder-based Brewers Association. That's a lot of suds. The total amount of beer they made rose 13 percent, or roughly 1.3 million barrels, to nearly 11.5 million barrels. The num ... More >>

Eight different brewery collaborations will honor Boulder beer lover Danny Williams

On Tuesday, beer-makers from five Colorado breweries gathered at Funkwerks in Fort Collins to whip up a special beer to commemorate the late Danny Williams and to raise money so that his family can keep his one-of-a-kind gold mine beer cellar. "We pow-wowed on the recipe, and it came together prett ... More >>

John Denver puts the Tourism Hall of Fame on a Rocky Mountain High

Tourism boosters must think longingly of the days when Colorado needed no more advertisement than a Muppet-haired troubadour on a "Rocky Mountain High," singing about how he was born in the summer of his 27th year, when he discovered the joys of campfires and really good pot, and moved to the state ... More >>

Colorado beer calendar: Beerdrinker of the Year, Wagon Ryed, and Oskar Blues

A bevy of beer bloggers will appear on American Craft Beer Radio with Gary Valliere this Saturday when Colorado's newest craft beer radio show takes the air for its third show at noon on 102.3 FM, the local ESPN affiliate. The show will focus on the experiences of bloggers and journalists who have w ... More >>

Beer calendar: show your love for beer at these heart-y beer events

The resumes were long and detailed, the qualifications extreme, but the ten finalists in the Wynkoop Brewing Company's annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest have been whittled down to three -- and these guys know their beer. The man who eventually claims the title for 2012 will be determined at an ... More >>

Odell head brewer Joe Mohrfeld is leaving Colorado for Texas

Odell BrewingJoe Mohrfeld​Joe Mohrfeld, who's been wrangling hops, malt and yeast for Odell Brewing in Fort Collins for the past three years, is headed to a new gig with Pinthouse Pizza, a brewery in formation in Austin, Texas, where the craft beer scene is getting ready to explode. It will b ... More >>

Pro tips: ten suggestions for doing the Great American Beer Festival right

Is this your first rodeo? If so, then you won't be alone. The Boulder-based Brewers Association sold 55,000 tickets to this year's Great American Beer Festival -- and you'll feel like every one of those people is in line with you. Maybe it's not your first time, in which case you're probably going o ... More >>

Five ways to freshen up the Great American Beer Festival

​What's that you say? How can you mess with perfection? Easily. The Great American Beer Festival, which takes place September 29 to October 1, is the biggest consumer beerstravaganza in the world. It's on the life to-do list for beer lovers all over the globe, and it brings more cachet to Colo ... More >>

The Great American Beer Festival sells out in record time

​The Great American Beer Festival sold out -- all 55,000 or so tickets -- in an amazing seven days this year, or roughly twelve weeks before the world's biggest beerapalooza begins on September 29. Last year's fest sold out about five weeks before the event, while the 2009 festival didn't fill ... More >>

Great American Beer Festival tickets on sale now

​Great American Beer Festival tickets went on sale today (here), and although they are $5 more this year, $60 is still worth the price of admission. After all, there will be 450 breweries serving 2,200 different beers at the fest, which runs September 29 through October 1. What else is new at ... More >>

Colorado beer calendar: Renegade Brewing opens; AC Golden goes wild

Jonathan ShikesAC Golden.​New Belgium Brewing celebrates its twentieth anniversary -- and two decades of spreading the word about better beer -- next Tuesday. Founded in Fort Collins in 1991, the brewery has gone from the basement of a house to become the third largest craft brewer in the nat ... More >>

New Belgium, maker of Fat Tire, plans a second brewery on the East Coast

FacebookNew Belgium headquarters in Fort Collins.​Two of the nation's biggest craft brewers, both based in California, have revealed the details of some major expansion plans in the past couple of days, and Colorado's New Belgium Brewing, the country's third largest craft brewer, could be clos ... More >>

Big Shikes night at Old Chicago kicks off American Craft Beer Week in Denver

Old Chicago bartender Matt (who I forgot to tip; sorry, Matt, I will get you next time I'm there) pours a Big Shikes pilsner.​The debut of Ska Brewing's Big Shikes Orange Blossom Imperial Pilsner packed the house at Old Chicago's Market Street location last night as beer bloggers, brewers and ... More >>

First annual Great American Techno Festival to hit Great American Beer Festival

​Techno and craft beer go together like ... well, like nothing we've ever seen before, because oftentimes, craft-beer-lovers and lovers of electronica occupy different spheres of existence. But come September 29, the inaugural Great American Techno Festival, brainchild of local DJ/producer/man ... More >>

Fill up on Big Shikes

​Techno and craft beer go together like ... well, like nothing we've ever seen before, because oftentimes, craft-beer-lovers and lovers of electronica occupy different spheres of existence. But come September 29, the inaugural Great American Techno Festival, brainchild of local DJ/producer/man ... More >>

It takes big men to make Ska Brewing's Big Shikes Orange Blossom Imperial Pilsner

Hop to it.​Brewing beer is physical work. Every day, the guys in rubber waders who do it for a living hump dozens and dozens of fifty-pound sacks of malted barley, rip them open and pour them into a mill. They carry heavy bags, buckets and barrels full of sugar, hops, honey and other ingredie ... More >>

Beer calendar: American Craft Beer Week edition

Jonathan ShikesSka Brewing's malted goodness.​American Craft Beer Week is a beer drinker's paradise, a week that celebrates small (and a few not-so-small) independent brewers around the country. There are a huge number of events going on this year in the Denver/Boulder area -- not to mention ... More >>

Beer calendar for the week ahead: Colorado Beer Week; home brew; Odell gets busy

Kate LevyA recent Great Divide release party.​Do you sense something? Is that...could it be...summer in the air? Actually, no. But it is spring, and that means spring beer releases. What's on tap this month? How about Odell Double Pilsner, Left Hand Good JuJu, Ska's Mexican Logger and three b ... More >>

Beer calendar for the week ahead: Find firkins at Hops&Pie, City, O'City and Cheeky Monk

Wynkoop BrewingWynkoop brewers know hops.​You won't find many of Colorado's brewers around Colorado this week as most of them have taken off for the annual Craft Brewers Conference, taking place in San Francisco. But that doesn't mean you can't toast them -- and the industry as a whole -- whi ... More >>

Denver ranks as the third most socially networked city in America

Wynkoop BrewingWynkoop brewers know hops.​You won't find many of Colorado's brewers around Colorado this week as most of them have taken off for the annual Craft Brewers Conference, taking place in San Francisco. But that doesn't mean you can't toast them -- and the industry as a whole -- whi ... More >>

Durango's Ska Brewing enlists Westword's Beer Man for a new, limited-release Imperial Pilsner

​I'm flying to Durango this morning for a 24-hour adventure in beer. It will start with a plane that uses propellers to fly over the mountains. It will involve a lot of malt, a lot of hops and perhaps some honey. When it's over, I hope to have helped Ska Brewing create a limited-release beer ... More >>

Worth a thousand words: John Hickenlooper and the Wynkoop's founders

​I'm flying to Durango this morning for a 24-hour adventure in beer. It will start with a plane that uses propellers to fly over the mountains. It will involve a lot of malt, a lot of hops and perhaps some honey. When it's over, I hope to have helped Ska Brewing create a limited-release beer ... More >>

Learn everything you ever wanted to know about beer tomorrow night in Boulder

Care to know more?​If you're anything like us, all you need to know about beer is that it's good for filling the void of existential desperation and it makes driving a car way funner. But if you're one of these hoity-toity "liberals," you probably also want to know a bunch of worthless facts a ... More >>

Next year's Great American Beer Festival will welcome U.S. territories

​The organizers of the Great American Beer Festival will make two changes for next year's big show, which will mark the thirtieth anniversary of world's largest commercial beer extravaganza. For starters, GABF -- which drew 49,000 attendees and 3,523 different beers -- will return to a later ... More >>

If Coors won big at the Great American Beer Festival, who lost out?

​Four of Colorado's biggest and best-known craft brewers, Avery, Breckenridge, Odell and Oskar Blues, were shut out of last month's Great American Beer Festival awards ceremony, while several other major brewers in the state barely made the cut. In fact, of the 41 medals awarded to Colorado b ... More >>

Great American Beer Festival: 25 things I learned in 2010

​1) No matter how prepared you are for GABF, it is still overwhelming. 2) San Diego County makes more amazing beers than some entire regions of the country. 3) Maui Brewing's CoConut Porter was one of the most heavenly beers I have ever tried. Even better, sources say they'll begin distribut ... More >>

Aurora's Dry Dock Brewing gets ready for GABF, gets ready for growth

Dry Dock BrewingKevin DeLange brings home the bacon last year at GABF.​August 19 was the deadline for breweries across the country to submit samples of their beers to the Boulder-based Brewers Association for judging at this year's Great American Beer Festival, which will be held September 16- ... More >>

Great American Beer Festival brew is ready and waiting to be judged -- in a Bud warehouse

This is what we imagine the warehouse looks like.​A refrigerated Budweiser warehouse isn't normally the kind of thing that would make a hop-headed craft beer geek salivate, but for the next couple of weeks, the facility at 62nd Avenue and Franklin Street in Denver is every beer geeks dream. I ... More >>

The Great American Beer Festival: Five new things in 2010

​There is nothing like the Great American Beer Festival anywhere on earth. Featuring 2,000 beers from more than 450 breweries, it is the largest craft beer fest in the world, and a trip to Denver is on the life lists of every beer lover in the United States. But it can also be a bit of a frat ... More >>

Do you have your Great American Beer Festival tix yet?

​If you haven't already bought tickets to the Great American Beer Festival - which will make Denver the center of the beer universe September 16-18 - there is still time. But not much. Tickets went on sale Monday - at $55 a pop - and the Boulder-based Brewers Association, which puts on the f ... More >>

Mayor Hickenlooper's cruisin' for brews

​Is Mayor John Hickenlooper's tour around Colorado as he campaigns for governor really just an excuse for the former brewer to try out local beers? Campaign spokesman George Merritt denies it: "We certainly try to end up in local restaurants when we travel, and several times it has been a bre ... More >>

Ten ways to toast American Craft Beer Week

​It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that Congress designated for an official celebration of microbrews, and only microbrews - and in Colorado, which has more than 115 breweries, this week is almost a state holiday. Here are ten ways to toast the occasion:

A Reason for Cheer

​It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that Congress designated for an official celebration of microbrews, and only microbrews - and in Colorado, which has more than 115 breweries, this week is almost a state holiday. Here are ten ways to toast the occasion:

Avery Brewing will begin canning beers in May

​Avery Brewing Company in Boulder plans to start canning four of its craft beers this spring, becoming the latest Colorado brewer to try aluminum on for size. The company, which is still testing the new canning line, hopes to have its Ellie's Brown Ale, White Rascal, India Pale Ale and a four ... More >>

Foam on the Range

​Avery Brewing Company in Boulder plans to start canning four of its craft beers this spring, becoming the latest Colorado brewer to try aluminum on for size. The company, which is still testing the new canning line, hopes to have its Ellie's Brown Ale, White Rascal, India Pale Ale and a four ... More >>

Craft breweries are on a roll

​With the Great American Beer Festival (September 24-26) and the first ever Denver Beer Fest (September 18-27) both around the corner, the craft beer industry's major trade group has released some mid-year statistics on what's been brewing nationwide. The Brewers Association reports that craf ... More >>

Colorado beer drinkers have a crush on cans

It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that even the United States Congress felt should be set aside for one purpose and one purpose only: drinking micro brews. (To find out about tappings, food pairings and other events, click here or here.) But Colorado's beer culture is worth a deeper look s ... More >>

An American Revolution

Craft Beer Week celebrates beer independence.

Beer today, gone tomorrow

At 6 p.m. tonight, April 16, "Beer Wars Live," a live simulcast, will present the founders of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, New Century Brewing Company and Stone Brewing Company, as well as Charlie Papazian, the president of the Boulder-based Brewers Association, in a discussion led by Ben Stein; the ... More >>

Beerdrinker of the Year: A judge's tale

For more photos from the contest, go to www.westword.com\slideshow It's good to be the judge, and I should know since I spent Saturday afternoon dressed in a black robe and a wig, drinking beer and making history -- beer-drinking history. The event was the thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year ... More >>

The reason for the season: beer

For more photos from the contest, go to www.westword.com\slideshow It's good to be the judge, and I should know since I spent Saturday afternoon dressed in a black robe and a wig, drinking beer and making history -- beer-drinking history. The event was the thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year ... More >>