Consumer Non-Cyclicals

Here's to American Craft Beer Week, and something wet in every cup

Here's to American Craft Beer Week (which began Monday), the annual salute to small independent brewers that the Boulder-based Brewers Association (with help from Congress!) created seven years ago to increase awareness of craft beer. Of course, in Colorado, as some people say, every week is craft b ... More >>

Beer calendar: Renegades, superheroes and American Craft Beer Week

Did you know that Italy has a thriving craft-beer scene? Neither did I. But Brian Jansing and Paul Vismara, two longtime suds slingers at the Falling Rock Taphouse, did, and they've traveled all over Italy, researching the movement as it grew from fewer than twenty craft breweries in 1996 to nearly ... More >>

Colorado breweries stay steady on the list of the nation's biggest craft brewers

Colorado craft breweries have remained steady on the Boulder-based Brewers Association's annual list of the top fifty craft-beer makers in the country. New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins is still the third-largest craft brewer in the nation, while Longmont's Oskar Blues rose from 29th on the list ... More >>

The Craft Brewers Conference wraps up with an award for New Belgium

It's been quiet out there in the craft beer world this week -- primarily because most of the movers and shakers from around the country are in Washington, D.C. for the annual Craft Brewers Conference, and industry-only event hosted by the Brewers Association. This year's version -- the thirtieth on ... More >>

Crooked Stave, Wit's End, Our Mutual Friend tune in to Colorado Craft Beer Week

Colorado Craft Beer Week, which runs through March 24, is in full swing (and you can find some highlights in our calendar on the next page), but there's plenty of other beer news pouring out. On Monday, in advance of next weekend's annual Craft Brewers Conference, the Boulder-based Brewers Associati ... More >>

All-female brewer collaboration beer, dubbed Ellegance, will be tapped on Monday

The Wynkoop Brewing Company will kick off Colorado Craft Beer Week on Monday by tapping the first all-female collaboration brew in state history, a Belgian-style brown ale called "Ellegance." The project, which was coordinated by the Wynkoop's Bess Dougherty, involved eight woman who work for seven ... More >>

Beer calendar: Belgian pales, barrel-aged beers and Colorado Craft Beer Week

The Mountain Sun group of pubs in Boulder and Denver have always been quirky (they don't take credit cards, for instance), but the clear, oversized mason jars they use instead of growlers have long frustrated fans who want to take their beer to go. Mountain Sun's delicious beer goes flat fast in the ... More >>

Dubbels, double IPAs and downward dog highlight our beer calendar

Can craft beer and yoga co-exist? "You bet your flexible-ass they can," says Adrienne Rinaldi, who runs BrewAsanas, a one-hour yoga class that rotates between different breweries in the metro area and is always followed by a beer. Billed as a an introduction to both Vinyasa yoga and good beer, Brew ... More >>

Renegade changes the name of Ryeteous IPA after legal threat from Brooklyn's Sixpoint Brewery

Add Renegade Brewing to the list of Colorado breweries who have had to change the name of one of their beers in response to a legal threat from another beer maker. (This story has been updated below.) The company's flagship brew, Ryeteous Rye IPA is now called -- wait for it -- Redacted Rye India P ... More >>

Loveland's Grimm Brothers teams up with Tivoli to distribute beer in Denver

The owners of Tivoli Brewing, which began making and selling historic Denver beer brands last year, have also formed a craft beer distributing company, and they will get rolling this week with Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, an up-and-coming Loveland beer maker that has wanted to start selling its beers t ... More >>

Third Shift lager, a new MillerCoors beer, got its medal-winning start at Denver's Sandlot

Tom Hail loves beer. He loves lagers especially, which is why he stays very late on a lot of nights to work on his passion projects. One of these is a traditional German-style marzen -- a recipe that he's been tinkering with on and off for eighteen years. It's a tasty beer -- so tasty that Hail, on ... More >>

Reader: Keep building breweries and we'll keep drinking

Late last week, Colorado Beer Man Jonathan Shikes laid out eight Colorado craft-beer trends in 2013, including pelletized hops, another "crafty" beer coming from AC Golden and, above all, more nanobreweries and microbreweries. Can there ever be too much beer -- or too many craft-beer projects? See ... More >>

A new bill would put craft beers in grocery stores

Beer calendar: Avery salutes the dictators; Denver Beer Co debuts its new barrel room

Kim Jordan, the CEO of New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, is no longer the majority owner of the company she co-founded in 1991. Instead, Jordan is just one of 456 owners as of December 28, when she sold her family's 59 percent stake to the now 100 percent employee-owned entity that runs the compa ... More >>

Crafting a Nation needs money; you need a beer -- all in this week's beer calendar

You have three more days to help out the Colorado-based producers of Crafting a Nation, a feature-length documentary that "tells the story of how the American Craft Brewers are rebuilding the economy one beer at a time." The group's Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday, and although donors have alrea ... More >>

Ten biggest Colorado craft beer stories in 2012

Colorado craft breweries and their many fans enjoyed a spectacular year in 2012, as the options for consuming locally made beer continued to grow and fill our tastebuds with joy. If the state's 160-plus breweries weren't expanding, then they were adding new beers or welcoming friendly competitors. A ... More >>

Is Colorado the center of the "crafty" beer universe?

Colorado -- home to the Great American Beer Festival, the Brewers Association and 161 breweries -- is the center of the universe when it comes to craft beer. But is it also the center of the "crafty" beer universe? On Thursday, the Brewers Association, which represents small brewers nationwide, fi ... More >>

Three unlikely online wine clubs eager to quench your thirst

It seems like everybody and their neighbor wants to be in the wine business. Last week, we spilled the juice on Denver-based Club W's first year in the monthly wine club business. While we found their edgy-cool offerings well worth the hype, as we did our research we couldn't help noticing that the ... More >>

Strange Brewing faces a trademark threat from a Massachusetts homebrew shop

Something strange is going on. In September, as Denver's Strange Brewing was gearing up for a small expansion as well as the Great American Beer Festival, owners John Fletcher and Tim Myers got a letter from a lawyer demanding that they change their name. See also: - De Steeg Brewing will open on ... More >>

Reader: The Denver cops have gay bars in their sights

Last Friday night, the Denver Police Department did an undercover operation, sending underage police cadets to liquor establishments across Denver where they tried to buy booze. And succeeded in the case of four bars (and numerous liquor stores), all of which were cited for selling to a minor. The ... More >>

Arvada Beer turns one; Boulder Beer, Funkwerks party in our beer calendar

Lost amid the avalanche of beer tappings during the Great American Beer Festival was a pumpkin beer that Longmont's Left Hand Brewing made just for Old Chicago restaurants as part of its Halloween Mini Tour. The beer, 4 Foodies Ale (see the video above), was brewed in collaboration with Guerrilla Fa ... More >>

Meet the winners of Great American Beer Festival 2012

This year's Great American Beer Festival played temporary home to 580 breweries -- and with more than 2,700 beers poured, the fest's professional judge panel had its hands (and mouths) full when making decisions on the winners of all 84 categories. Continue reading for the full list of the weekend's ... More >>

Chicago's Goose Island will brew some of its signature 312 beer in Colorado's 970

Goose Island, a Chicago craft brewer that was bought last year by Anheuser-Busch InBev, will brew some of its signature 312 Urban Wheat Ale at the AB InBev plant in Fort Collins, according to a federal filing. 312 takes its name from the Windy City's area code and is described on Goose Island's webs ... More >>

Wynkoop Brewing hires Bess Dougherty as its first female brewer in 24 years

The Wynkoop Brewing Company was founded in 1988, just three years after Bess Dougherty was born. And although there have been plenty of women who have worked in Denver's oldest brewpub, Dougherty will be the first to don the rubber boots of a full-time brewer. And you can bet those boots will be pin ... More >>

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 >>

New Belgium and Odell say they weren't trying to keep Breckenridge Brewery from growing

Two of Colorado's biggest craft brewers registered some displeasure late last month over the efforts of one of their colleagues, Breckenridge Brewery, to get a bill passed that would have allowed it to significantly expand its business model in the state. The rift shows how competitive the craft be ... More >>

Three Colorado winemakers worthy of Drink Local Wine week love

A little more than nine months ago, we ruffled a lot more than a few feathers by voicing our opinion on the local wine industry. Everyone from the Front Range Winery Association to hobbyist vintners juiced over where we got the balls to speak our minds on such an -- unbeknownst to us -- unbelievabl ... More >>

$714 million a year and other fun facts about Colorado's craft beer industry

The Colorado Brewers Guild provided proof today of what most Colorado residents have known for a while: beer is good for us, economically at least. On Tuesday, the Guild, which represents craft breweries in the state legislature, said Colorado's 139 licensed craft breweries pump $714 million a year ... 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: 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 >>

Is keg wine the next keg beer?

When the Kitchen [Next Door] opened in Boulder earlier this year, it didn't have a single bottle of wine on the beverage list. Instead, the restaurant installed a keg system from which it pours three whites and five reds. Frasca Food & Wine's Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson pursued a s ... More >>

Three reasons why Colorado wines still suck (and three Colorado winemakers who are getting it right)

​Last month we attended the first annual Colorado Winefest - Denver, and for the first time tasted a number of truly delicious, locally produced wines we could recommend to you without pause. So you can certainly understand how we were legitimately fired up about an already scheduled wine-tast ... More >>

Five Colorado wines (finally!) worth drinking by the case

​Have you ever gotten the impression that Colorado wines kinda suck? If you're really, really honest with yourself, you probably answered yes - and you're not the only person who feels that way. A glance at the wine list of many of Denver's top-rated dining destinations routinely reveals fewer ... More >>

Comment of the day: Why did the People's Fair choose Miller?

​While most folks go to festivals like the Capitol Hill People's Fair mostly for the bouncy-castle and the shirtless ambiance, Bree Davies is partial to the finer points of festival vending, like hats for dogs and paintings of sheep in trench-coats; in her recap of the fair yesterday, she brou ... More >>

Four perfect-for-summer Italian wines

​Italian wines can be hard to love. They're unabashedly old world, full of mouthwatering acidity, brazenly tannic, and as terroir-driven as they come. They're also endlessly intriguing. Each of Italy's winemaking regions tells the unique, richly historic tale of its evolution from independent ... 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 >>

Breckenridge Brewing spoofs megabrewers in new TV ads...again

Breckenridge Brewing is hitting the airwaves with a TV campaign spoofing the big boys of the industry and the gimmicks that they use to sell beer. The four Truth in Beervertising ads feature Breckenridge head brewer Bob Harrington delivering one-liners in a deadpan voice that skewers the cold-indic ... More >>

Taste of Vail

Arvada Beer Company's Kelly Floyd plans to compete with the big boys of brewing

​Kelly Floyd has been dreaming for seven years about opening a brewery. Today, she will unveil her dream, the Arvada Beer Company, and show off the work that has been done inside the building in Olde Town Arvada where she will open in June. "I love the beer industry. It's a very tight-knit gr ... More >>

How liquor stores support Colorado craft breweries

Brewers get the key to the Governor's Mansion at Pints & Bites

Odell BrewingBeer gets a seat at the big kids' table.​When Coloradans elected former beer man John Hickenlooper to the state's top post last November, they had no idea they'd be letting the entire craft-brewing industry into the Governors' Mansion as well. But that's what happened last night ... More >>

Ska Brewing makes light of beer -- but not light beer -- in new video

​Craft beer has been the star of a recent documentary, a television series and a couple of Youtube videos over the past year, now another feature-length documentary is scheduled to be released this summer. Most of these efforts have been serious, noble -- sometimes overly so. Leave it to the ... More >>

Think wine scores don't matter? Three ways to use them to help you drink better wine

​ Wow. Who knew that The Infinite Monkey Theorem (aka Denver's little winery that could) scoring Colorado's first 88-point Wine Spectator review would stir up so many passionate responses about the validity of wine reviews? Laura Shunk's scathing critique of most wine industry rags' random, s ... More >>

The Infinite Monkey Theorem winery gets major love from Wine Spectator

​Valentine's Day came early for Ben Parsons, winemaker/owner of The Infinite Monkey Theorem winery. Not in the form of chocolate-covered corkscrews or any other such frippery; the gift he received was something every Colorado winemaker has been pining away for: a Wine Spectator score of 88 poi ... More >>

Pinot Posse wines spark Old World vs. New World debate

​Last week's post featuring the wines of the Pinot Posse sparked much debate over the respective merits and flaws of modern, new world-style pinot noir. At one end of the table, we had the new world wine lovers, who revel in bottles bursting with ripe, mouthwateringly juicy fruit, and (though ... More >>

Hickenlooper's Inaugurale will be delivered via horse and carriage

​Not only is the Wynkoop Brewing Company making a special beer to commemorate brewery co-founder John Hickenlooper's gubernatorial inauguration party on Tuesday, it will deliver that beer, Hickelooper's Inaugurale, via horse and carriage. The party, which is being held at the Fillmore auditor ... More >>

The ten biggest Colorado beer stories of the year

Wynkoop BrewingThe Wynkoop got together with Breckenridge Brewing.​In April, the Wynkoop Brewing Company began delivering kegs and cans to some of its downtown clients via horse and buggy. The move was a cool addition to Denver's beer culture and a fun sight to see on Friday afternoons. But C ... More >>

Colorado gubernatorial ball will have a beer list that's a mile higher than any other state

​Of all the inaugural balls taking place next month around the country, Colorado's has to have the best beer list. And why not? The new governor, John Hickenlooper, is a brewer and the co-founder of the iconic Wynkoop Brewing Company. In addition to Hickenlooper's InaugurAle -- which is bein ... More >>

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