Milieu Fermentation Creates Tribute Beer for Knuckle Puck Denver Show

Aurora’s Milieu Fermentation is releasing an easy-drinking beer in collaboration with, and timed to a visit from, old friends in the Chicago rock band Knuckle Puck, who are playing at the Summit Music Hall on Wednesday, May 7.

Milieu, Westword’s reigning Best New Brewery, is celebrating its one-year anniversary over the weekend of May 2-4, and Knuckle Puck is touring to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the release of the band's first album, Everything Is Copacetic. Brewery co-founder Rob Bessett went to high school with the Knuckle Puck’s guitarist, Nick Casasanto, and became familiar with the whole band over the years.

“This is really, it's just, just a fun project, buddies celebrating each other's successes," he says. "It's just a really cool time for these guys, ten years is huge and to have an album that's as important to music and to people as that album is.”

He says they decided to team up for the celebratory brew after he flew back to Chicago in January to watch the band’s anniversary show. The band had a collaboration with a local coffee roaster and a tattoo shop at that home-market show, and they announced a series of additional anniversary shows after that date.

“We had talked collab when they were visiting last fall and hanging around the brewery,” Bessett said. So when he saw those joint projects and heard that they’d be coming to Denver, he approached the band. Bassist Ryan Rumchaks says it was it was a “no questions asked” yes.

“I’ve had friends who who have worked in breweries. But owning one's a whole different ballgame and it was a no-brainer,” he says.

They talked about a few ideas, including an IPA and a green beer as a nod to the Copacetic album cover, but at the end of the day Bessett says they went for a crushable lager as an homage to his favorite beer for a live show, Pabst Blue Ribbon. The beer, also called Everything is Copacetic, comes in at six percent ABV, with additions of corn and rice lightening the perception of the beer and ensuring that it goes down easy.


“There is a little bit of Simcoe for the hops, so trying to push more of the grapefruit aromatics, but there's not a ton of hops in this beer,” he says. “It's something that people are just gonna be able to crush the hell out of. And it's something that is focused around music. The beer is something that actually gets out of the way — you're enjoying your other senses, your sight, your hearing, sweaty people bumping up into you, not what you're tasting necessarily. So it's like more of an accessory for entertainment.”

The beer will be available on tap and in cans and they’re trying to figure out the logistics to have it available at the show, but it’s a tough task to work that out with an organization the size of Live Nation.

Denver has become a regular stop for Knuckle Puck over the years — Rumchaks says they're around at least once a year, and in the early days it was three or four stops a year as they toured and built a fan base. Bessett doesn't make it to every Chicago show any more, but he still sees the guys a few times a year between Chicago and Denver and will stock them up with their namesake beer before they leave town.

Rumchaks says Denver has treated them well; bands throw around comments about some cities being like a second home, but the Mile High has always given them a great reception. He joined the band at 17 years old and said it's an honor that people still care so much about the band and the album they're celebrating. Bessett says it gets "rowdy" at their Denver shows, and Rumchaks agreed.

"People have always really gone off for our band, especially early on," he says. "Our first time going out there, it was fucking crazy. It was probably one of the first handful of cities where we were like, holy shit."

Milieu Fermentation is at 2101 North Ursula in Aurora; Knuckle Puck will be at Summit Music Hall at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 7.