At the Tasty Weasel Oskar Blues taproom

Barrel-aged barleywine and the One Hit Wonder, a imperial ipa, both are so good :)

2nd Round of Pliny the Younger

Outside patio at the Falling Rock Tap House

2nd Round of Pliny the Younger at the Falling Rock

Falling Rock Tap House

Lost Abbey Saison blanc, 4.5% bitter, hop flavor, sharp, flora back flavor.

Pliny the Younger is a featured article

Hey, my Pliny the Younger article is being featured on the Food and Wine page at Associated Content.  The Pliny the Younger craze that is sweeping the nation. 
www.associatedcontent.com/food_wine or just look up Pliny the Younger Craze.

A video of Pliny the Younger at the Falling Rock Tap House

A short video from my iPhone of the Pliny the Younger release party at the Falling Rock Tap House in Denver.

Toasting our Pliny :)

The Pliny the Younger toast!

Pliny the Younger on tap

Pliny the Younger on tap at the Falling Rock Tap House in Denver! Chris Black is pouring the beer which came to 150 glasses.

Strong ale Fest crowd

7:25 and the crowd is growing :)

9th Annual Strong Ale Fest in full swing

Barrel aging room full of beer enthusiasts!

Strong Ale Fest

There's all ready a line forming at the front door at Avery Brewery!

Sad truth about drinking beer and your waistline

Sorry all but drinking that high alcohol beer can cause your waistline to grow.  High calories correlate to high alcohol content in the beer. On average, there's over 150 calories in a microbrewed beer and to gain 1 pound in weight all you need is 3500 calories.  So drinking 22.5 high caloric beers you will gain one pound of weight.  Here's a link to the blog that details this beer to weight to exercise ratio. http://www.fermentedlychallenged.com/2008/08/truth-about-calories-and-beer.html

9th Annual Boulder Strong Ale Fest tonight

Tonight at 5pm the Avery Brewery kicks off  the 9th Annual Boulder Strong Ale Fest. The fest will be held at the brewery in their taproom and the barrel aging rooms.
There will be 90 microbrewery beers on tap from around the country.  The taproom's will have Allagash, Asher, and Avery breweries strong ales on their draft system as to alleviate congestion.  They sold out 350 tickets for each day but there will be more people due to the great interest from brewers around the country who want to attend the event.  Avery staff members receive a ticket and a guest pass. 

Doors open at 5 and close at 10pm.  Please follow festival etiquette, 1) order beer by number, 2) move away from the bar after you receive your sample.  These rules help to keep the crowd flowing and alleviate congestion.

Pace yourself, these beers are potent! You have plenty of time and please have a DD to ensure a safe passage home.

Backcountry Pizza in Nederland

Backcountry Pizza in Ned, drinking Mad River's Scotch Porter and Vertical Strong Ale from He'brew Jewbelation (a blend of all the years) than oaked aged. Both are complex and rich, worth a try:)

Stout Month at the Southern Sun

Stout Month at the Southern Sun. Pumphouse's Cherry Oak Backdraft Imperial Stout, Grand Teton Black Cauldron Imperial Stout, and Soaker Stout from Pagosa Springs are guest beers now on tap!

Javapeno from Golden City Brewery at the Mountain Sun

Barrel aged Javapeno from Golden City Brewery. Brett aroma, sweet front transition into a smoke jalapeño and whiskey back end. You must drink at Stout Month at the Mountain Sun pub and brewery. Go today!

Pumpkin Stout at Mountain Sun

Dark Harvest-pumpkin stout 5.8% at Mountain Sun.

Avery Brewing Taproom

At Avery finishing our Cuban sandwich from Savory Cuisine and drinking Ellie's Brown on cask.

Interview with Brad Lincoln, co-owner and brewer at Funkwerks

1. What made you think of starting a brewery?

 Gordon won a Gold Medal at the 2007 National Home Brew Competition for his Saison which he took as a sign to go to brewing school and become a professional brewer. I was looking to start a company where I created something, having been a homebrewer I thought starting a brewery would be a good fit for me. Gordon and I met at the Siebel Institute, a brewing school in Chicago with some courses in Munich Germany. After finishing school I went down to South Florida to look at starting a brewery. While down there I received a call from Gordon who was interested in starting a Saison brewery. 

2. Why in Fort Collins? Isn't the Colorado brewing industry saturated?

3. What was the basis for brewing just Belgian Style beers?

The craft brewing industry isn't showing signs of being saturated. We are seeing double digit growth even in a down economy. Colorado is also still growing and its important to note that Colorado exports a fair amount of beer. Because of laws craft breweries are not distributed evenly. For example Colorado may have 130 breweries but Mississippi only has two. The vast majority of the Colorado beer market is still held by the major brewers like Inbev (Budweiser) and SAB (Miller, Coors). 

We chose Fort Collins because it is probably one of the only places in the United States that you can ask somebody on the street if they have ever had a saison and there is a good chance that their answer will be 'yes'. This is of course thanks to New Belgium for educating the local population for us. All the local breweries have been very supportive of us during our startup phase. In fact I don't know that we could have done it as well with out them.  Another advantage of being in Fort Collins is that we can brew what we want and don't have to brew a pale ale or a stout because several breweries around are already doing this style very well. We have the ability to experiment and from we have seen the Fort Collins culture really admires that.

We choose to brew Belgian styles of beer and more specifically saison because that is what we love to drink. Saison is not going to be the next IPA but we think that there is definitely growth in the market for the style (both inside and outside Colorado).

4. What are your visions for the future?

Right now we are focused on obtaining draft and bottle accounts in the Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver markets. That said we could see distributing outside of Colorado in the next few years as well. We have Saison in bottles now, and White will come in bottles shortly. We will also have our spring seasonal, Brett Dream, coming in bottles in the next few months. Brett Dream will be a brettanomyces saison. We never want to be a large brewery, but over the next five years we would like to grow to around 1000 barrels.

Upslope Brewing, on tap now.

The Quad on tap at Upslope Brewing, Boulder.

Upslope Brewery has started their expansion by blowing out the wall between the taproom and the next unit. They will be closed for two weeks in mid-March.

Red Flag Ale

Red Flag Ale from the Tasty Weasel in Longmont. Gordon based that was dry hopped with Cascade hops. Sweet front with a bitter aftertaste, never thought I'd like a hopped beer.

Funkwerks, a Belgian Saison brewery in Fort Collins

Funkwerks is a new brewery that has a niche of brewing only Saison Ales.  They have 6 different Saisons on tap at their taproom.
They are located in the old Fort Collins Brewery building.  Jean Parker was our bartender when we visited the brewery, she was quite helpful and had knowledge about their beers.

I liked three of their Saisons, the White, their flagship Saison Ale, and the Belgian Resistance Saison.  We purchased a 6 taster set.  Funkwerks opened in December of 2010 and will become a local following with their Saison Ales.

Red Flag Ale

Red Flag Ale on tap at the Tasty Weasel in Longmont.  It's base is Gordon, their imperial red that was dry hopped with cascade hops.  I'm not a hop head but this version has a sweet front flavor with a bitter aftertaste that I found quite tasty.  I may develop a hop taste buds in the future.

Stout Month

Stout Month started yesterday at the Mountain Sun Restaurants and Pub.  We were at the Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery in Boulder for lunch and they had 7 of their own brews with 5 guest stouts.
For $10 you can get a 6 4-oz taster set.  It is quite a deal and this way you can share the tasters than order what you liked. 
We ordered 3 each that we thought we would like.  I ordered the nitro coconut cream stout, stoked oak, and nitro young's double chocolate stout.
Nitro coconut cream is their first co-champion winner of the homebrew competition.  This stout has a delicate coconut flavor and has 5.25% alcohol.
Stoked oak is the first champion winner with this barrel-aged stout with oak chips.  It has a vanilla back flavor that finishes with a bite. It has 7.2% alcohol.
Nitro Young's double chocolate stout is a favorite of mine with the chocolate flavor in a rich dark beer. It has 5.2% alcohol.

That's what I like about stouts, their alcohol content is relatively in the middle so you can drink more beer but not sacrifice flavor.

Larry choices weren't my favorite, they were more intense with a bite to them. He choose the nihilist, mad river steelhead, and moylan's dragoon.
Nihilist is a Russian Imperial stout that has 9.5% alcohol.  It is a strong dry stout with complex flavors.
Mad River steelhead has 6% alcohol is recommended as a stout to complement desserts.  I found it flat and not very complex.
Moylan's dragoon has 5% alcohol and was my least favorite of the taster set.  It was like drinking water to me and had no complexity.

Taster set.

February Stout Month at the Sun's is going to be an adventure because every time we go there they will have a different stout for us to taste!

Top view of taster set.