Barley's Angels at Upslope Brewing Co

I have been to many women's beer events at breweries over the years and most are good but some can be lacking in ingenuity. Tuesday was one of the best woman's beer events, it was organized by Barley's Angels and hosted at Upslope Brewing in their Flatiron Rd tap room.

For those who may not know about this organization, Barley's Angels started as a vehicle for women in the business; breweries, brewpubs, tap houses, etc. I'll quote the "about us" blog section, "to  advance the female consumer craft beer enthusiast, resulting in increased patronage and revenue from women, while encouraging education and interest in beer among this often under-recognized demographic group". Barley's Angels are individual chapters that is world wide and up until a few months ago there wasn't a chapter in Colorado.

Deborah Cameron

Deborah Cameron started the Barley's Angels chapter for Denver and Boulder. She is learning every day about beer and is very enthusiastic. She organized a dessert/beer pairing at Upslope Brewing in Boulder with the help of Bethany Lovato, who is the event coordinator at Upslope. The desserts were made by Samantha Rolen and Griffen Wall pastry chefs from Boulder.

Samantha Rolen and Griffen Wall

There were four courses pairing a dessert with Upslope beers.

The first course was Belgian Style Pale Ale barrel-aged for one month with blackberries, the beer is 7.5% ABV. It was paired with a Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with blackberry reduction. I like this pairing where the blackberries in the beer added a tartness that cut the sweetness of the cheesecake. The cheesecake was made with a shortbread crust which I thought was a wonderful twist to the ordinary graham cracker crust.

Second course was with the Thai IPA that is 6.6% ABV and it was paired with a Lemon Meringue tartlet. I'm not a IPA drinker and not fond of lemongrass that is in this IPA but this Thai version complimented the lemon in the dessert quite well. The sweetness was cut by the IPA's hoppiness.

The third pairing was with the Brown Ale, at 6.7% ABV with a Gingerbread with lemon glaze. I didn't think this was a good pairing and not sure why. The gingerbread was too gingery for me and was a contrast to the Brown Ale which is most cases I would have like it but for some reason this didn't go.

The final course was with the Foreign Style Stout, it is 6.9% ABV paired with Upslope Nitro Milk stout Chocolate Cake with Bourbon Ganache. Chocolate on top of chocolate on top of beer, yippee! This was my favorite pairing, the Foreign Style Stout is a well balanced beer that complimented the chocolate cake.