New Belgium releases two new Lips of Faith beers this week, Abbey Grand Cru and Super Cru, which celebrates the Fort Collins brewery’s twentieth anniversary. Super Cru is a double version of Fat Tire, meaning it has twice the malt and twice the hops; it has also been enhanced with…
When news about the hottest beer in the world, Ghost Face Killah, went national, the staff at Boulder’s Twisted Pine Brewing was a little nervous. After all, they’d named the beer, which is made with ghost peppers, after rapper Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan without asking for his permission…
Chad Yakobson has a master’s degree in beer. And like most academics, he’s putting that degree to use for the greater good, namely by researching different kinds of yeast strains — primarily brettanomyces, which is used in certain styles of “sour” ales — and brewing beers based on what he…
Once again, the thin air over Denver has created some, um, baggage for an airline passenger — something we’ve had plenty of experience with. This time, it was an Army recruiting officer from Montana named Thaddeus Rule, who found himself on the wrong side of the law and on the…
As Gandalf says in The Return of the King, “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.” Colorado Beer Week, Denver Beer Fest, American Craft Beer Week, the Great American Beer Festival. For some, it’s hard to keep them all straight. But for the state’s brewers and their loyal followers, too…
Boulder’s Twisted Pine Brewing Company is bottling fire. The brewery, which is fond of adding unusual flavors to its whimsically named beers, will release Ghost Face Killah in twelve-ounce single bottles for Cinco de Mayo. It’s the first time this very hot (very hot!) cult beer has been sold in…
Copper Kettle Brewing, a new brewery on the border of Denver and Aurora, opens today at 3 p.m. with five beers on draft — a saison, a pale ale, a helles, a summer ale and an altbier — and a beautiful 52-seat living room-like tasting room. Owned by Jeremy Gobien…
Strange Brewing will celebrate a bittersweet anniversary Saturday, April 23, with a slightly sweet beer, a Belgian trippel that has been waiting for a year. The brewery actually opened on May 19, 2010, but owners Tim Meyers and John Fletcher brewed their first Strange beer a few weeks earlier, called…
AC Golden Brewing, the tiny MillerCoors-owned beer maker located inside the Golden factory, will begin packaging its signature Colorado Native in cans for the summer; it will be sold in twelve-packs starting May 1. “Our retailers and drinkers have been requesting cans, especially for summer, so they can take Colorado…
Batch 19, a Coors-made lager that is brewed based on a recently rediscovered pre-Prohibition recipe, is finally coming home to Colorado. The recipe for the beer was discovered in an old log book at the Golden brewery in 2004, after a small flood in the basement. The book — and…
American Craft Beer Week starts in a little less than three weeks, but the nine (yes, nine!) breweries in Fort Collins have already banded together to brew a collaboration beer that celebrates the seven days that Congress dedicated to the quaffing of craft brew. C.B. & Potts, Coopersmith’s, Crooked Stave,…
Mexican-style craft-brewed lagers are set to make a splash in Denver this summer, with a couple of new ones joining the fiesta in the run-up to Cinco de Mayo. Because of its lighter, more mellow profile, Mexican lager isn’t a style that’s common among craft brewers, who typically push the…
As the song goes, John Denver was born in the summer of his 27th year. That was1970, when the singer, who hadn’t yet gained a huge amount of fame, moved to Aspen with his wife, Annie, and began writing the songs that we all know by heart…
Government officials in Jefferson County are negotiating with a Spanish construction company that is interested in financing, designing, building and operating the controversial Jefferson Parkway, a ten-mile toll road between State Highway 128 in Broomfield and State Highway 93 at West 64th Avenue north of Golden…
What does it say about the U.S.A. in 2011 that our Postal Service accidentally used the replica Statue of Liberty in Las Vegas rather than the real thing as a model for its stamp honoring Lady Liberty’s 125th anniversary? For one thing, it says we Americans love our landmarks so…
For the past twenty years, Denver has had a special connection to Antarctica, primarily because the firms that support the U.S. government’s research there have operated here, training the hundreds of employees who spend up to a year on the continent. After spending time on “the Ice,” however, many former…
More than 900 oysters arrived at the Cheeky Monk yesterday on an overnight flight from the Oregon coast — all of them destined to be consumed with Rogue beers. That comes out to a dozen each for the 75 people who bought tickets to the sold-out Colorado Beer Week event…
Many of the bigger craft breweries across the country overhaul their image every three or four years, adding beers to the lineup, changing their look or their labels. But time moves a little slower in Idaho Springs. “We are doing a whole image revamp,” says Steve Indrehus, the head brewer…
Barley, water, hops and yeast. They are the four basics of beer — unless, of course, you’re gluten-intolerant. Then barley is off the table. Which makes it hard to drink beer. In the past few years, however, a couple of companies across the country have begun making gluten-free beer, including…
While some Colorado brewers have been pulling their beers out of other states recently, breweries from other states continue to try their luck in Colorado, where craft beer seems to flow in the streets like water and in the veins of its residents like blood. Since the beginning of 2011,…
You’re a man, so by definition, everything you do must be manly, right? Wrong. There are hundreds of beers out there to choose from, lining the liquor store shelves and bar taps like kids waiting to get picked for a game of recess football. But only a very few of…
Many of the people who work in Colorado’s craft beer industry believe that brewer-in-chief Governor John Hickenlooper would never sign a bill allowing grocery and convenience stores to sell full-strength beer — even if the legislature passed it. Now they won’t have to worry about it — at least not…
