PHILOSOPHY
Marrero preaches a mantra of environmental responsibility and stewardship, supplying local farmers with spent grain, growing hops at a local farm and in Lahaina (which will help reduce the impact of shipping hops from the mainland), making bio-diesel from kitchen by-products in the pub, and using photovoltaic panels to capture solar energy. “Hawaii is generally associated with tropical fruits, nuts, and flowers, and we try to draw from what the ‘āina (‘land’) provides to make innovative and fun beers,” says Garrero. “We take traditional, sometime old-world styles, and give them new life or dimension by adding these agricultural products to the brew.”
KEY BEER
While it sounds like it might taste like Coppertone, Maui’s CoCoNut PorTeR, at 5.7% ABV, is actually a silky, slightly sweet delight, a blend of coffee and cocoa flavors mingled with hand-toasted coconut and a dash of spicy hops to balance it all out. Drink it in a sunny place—preferably Maui.
Big Island & Oahu
KONA BREWING CO.
75-5629 Kuakini Hwy. • Kona, HI 96740 (808) 334-2739 • konabrewingco.com • Established: 1994
KOKO MARINA CENTER
7192 Kalaniana’ole Hwy. • Honolulu, HI 96825 • (808) 394-5662 • konabrewingco.com • Established: 2003
SCENE & STORY
Established in 1994 by father-and-son team Cameron Healy and Spoon Khalsa, Kona Brewing Company is now the thirteenth-largest craft brewery in the United States and owned by the Craft Brewers Alliance, which includes Red Hook of Seattle, Widmer of Portland, Oregon, and Chicago’s Goose Island. Kona’s head brewer moved on as of summer 2011; most of the company’s beers sold on the U.S. mainland are contract brewed in New Hampshire and Portland, Oregon, and distributed by Anheuser-Busch. The brewpub in Kona, built on-site a few years later, brews 2,000bbl a year for locals; the Honolulu location is a bar and eatery. Beer travelers can count on a fresh and relaxing beer in the Kona location with its verdant patio and menu of hand-tossed pizzas, sandwiches, salads, and pupu plates (appetizers). Free tours are also offered, and there’s a cool little growler station for beer to go. The larger Koko Marina spot in Honolulu overlooks a placid bay of boats tied up to the piers and has a spacious indoor taproom. But not even peaceful Hawaii is immune from the clamor of constant expansion. In 2015 Kona announced that it will invest approximately $15 million to expand with a new state-of-the-art, 30,000-square-foot brewery bringing the total output to 100,000 barrels per year, and a $1 million renovation to the Koko Marina location.
PHILOSOPHY
Easy in the islands.
KEY BEER
Da Grind Buzz Kona Coffee Imperial Stout (8.5% ABV) is a winter seasonal brewed in Kona that’s made with coffee beans grown, harvested, and roasted in nearby Holualoa. It’s as aromatic as a freshly iced espresso but creamier on the tongue and black as ancient lava.
BEST of the REST: HAWAII
HUMPY’S BIG ISLAND ALEHOUSE
75-5815 Alii Dr. • Kailua-Kona, HI 96740 • (808) 324-2337 • humpys.com
Sister bar to craft beer maven Billy Opinksy’s famous Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse in Anchorage, Alaska, Humpy’s opened in 1994 right across the street from the water, overlooking a couple of slender palms and the Pacific. There’s ample outdoor seating, a sports-bar-like interior, and a vast menu.
BIG ISLAND BREWHAUS
64-1066 Mamalahoa Hwy. • Waimea, HI 96743 • (808) 887-1717 • bigislandbrewhaus.com
A fast-growing and wildly popular brewery started by brewmaster Tom Kerns, Big Island Brewhaus is producing award-winning brews like Overboard IPA, White Mountain Porter, and Golden Sabbath, a Belgian-style ale brewed with Hawaiian honey.
REAL: A GASTROPUB
Marukai Market Place, 1020 Auahi St. • Honolulu, HI 96814 • (808) 596-2526 • realgastropub.com
Troy Terorotua, former beer buyer of Whole Foods Kahala (on Oahu) packs in a growing cadre of beer geeks nightly with one of the best beer menus I’ve seen—anywhere, and not just in the islands. Every single server has the level one Cicerone Certification, and the food is very tasty (try the beer-braised brisket poutine). With an annual beer fest launched in July and a venture planned in 2015 for the up-and-coming Kaimuki neighborhood, Terorotua is helping shape Honolulu’s beer scene.
HONOLULU BEERWORKS
328 Cooke St. • Honolulu, HI 96813 • (808) 589-BEER • honolulubeerworks.com
Recycled wooden walls, weathered benches, and cabinets greet you at this super attractive brewpub near downtown and Waikiki. By sponsoring night markets and the Honolulu brewers fest among other events, Honolulu Beerworks is playing a vital role in the ever growing scene. The flagship beer is a saison, Pia Mahi’ai (farmer’s beer), a tribute to the farmers of Hawaii brewed with locally grown oranges, tangerines, lemons, limes, lemongrass, and Big Island honey.
COLORADO MONTANA and the ROCKY MOUNTAINS
COLORADO
ASK ANY BEER LOVER TO NAME THE BEST BEER STATE AND CITY IN AMERICA, AND, DEPENDING on their zip code, you’ll soon be besieged with per capita statistics and other “inside baseball” minutiae, a puffed-chest conversation brewers and industry watchers refer to as “the arms race.” The fact is, there’s room for more than one Super Power on Craft Beer Planet. But with 100 new breweries statewide since this book first came out, Colorado and Denver make a very strong case.
From the leafy streets and sunny taprooms of Fort Collins to the cavernous barrel-aging rooms in Boulder, sleek gastropubs in downtown Denver, and wood-stove-warmed, log-cabin-like Rocky Mountain brewpubs, there are scores of beer-friendly spots and some of the country’s most scenic drives between them. Denver alone merits a stop in this state: the mile-high city is home to the Denver Beer Fest, a ten-day annual craft beer festival culminating in the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the world’s largest mass beer tasting (for number of beers on offer—more than 2,000) and America’s largest beer festival of any kind. Denver is also the home of Colorado governor and brewmaster-in-chief John Hickenlooper, a cofounder of Wynkoop Brewing Co. No beer lover should miss making a good long visit, especially during the Denver Beer Fest and GABF, to see—and taste—what all the fuss is about. After visiting Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, head west into the Rockies and then south to Durango, a 450-Mile epic of 11,000-foot passes, atmospheric taprooms, and thirst-stoking outdoor options.
ITINERARIES
1-DAY Crooked Stave, Former Future, Falling Rock Taphouse
3-DAY Denver to Boulder County for Upslope, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Mountain Sun, Wild Mountain Smokehouse, and the West End Tavern
7-DAY Denver to Boulder/Longmont; Aspen for Aspen Brewing Co., Woody Creek Tavern and the J-Bar; continue on through Ouray to Durango
Denver
CROOKED STAVE ARTISAN BEER PROJECT
3350 Brighton Blvd. • Denver, CO 80216 (720) 550-8860 • crookedstave.com • Established: 2011
SCENE & STORY
Over the past few years, one of the most talked-about stories in craft beer—and not just Colorado—has been the founding and success of Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project. Founder Chad Yakobson wrote a dissertation on Brettanomyces yeast (wild yeast), or “brett,” while studying brewing science at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University, then returned to the States, opened Crooked Stave in 2010 (after stints at Odell at Funkwerks), and, in short order, helped spark a firestorm of American wild ales. There were several well established brewers across the United States making sour and wild ales with Brettanomyces and bacteria, but Yakobson’s timing (and beer) was impeccable. He also had a smart start-up model, brewing and procuring wort (unfermented beer) with local breweries which had excess production capacity, and transferring the liquid to his own warehouse for fermentation, aging, blending, and bottling—a garagiste of beer. (Anchorage Brewing Co. and the Rare Barrel are two successful brewers who started similarly.)
Yakobson’s success caught the Denver beer scene off guard. Within a year he was serving his sour beers beyond Denver, even t
o revered Belgian lambic guru Jean Van Roy of Cantillon at a now-legendary beer festival in Worcester, MA, in the early summer of 2012, which gathered over 100 European brewers and a smattering of Americans for a sort of global artisanal beer summit. Then, in late 2012, shut out of the Great American Beer Festival, he organized a sort of stray-dogs party called What the Funk?! with scores of other upstart American brewers focused on sour, wild, and farmhouse ales. It was a smash (and is now an annual party).
As of this writing, Crooked Stave’s tasting room was inside the Source, a stunning artisanal wares collective with a baker, two restaurants, wine shop, and other modern specialties (a designer hotel with a rooftop beer garden is on the way). Last time I saw Yakobson, at a beer event in Florida, he was ablaze with plans for a massively expanded cellar at the production warehouse a couple of miles from the Source, including a new twenty-five hectoliter brewhouse, ten 50hl fermenters, 300 wine and spirits barrels, and twenty-two foudres—massive French oak fermenters—ranging from 60hl to 120hl (read: wow). “We’re looking to grow the taproom and bring an additional one back to the original brewery space. We now have over 12,000 square feet of production space,” Yakobson said.
PHILOSOPHY
Yakobson calls himself a hophead with a serious penchant for sour beer, and Crooked Stave’s lineup fits this disposition. Think 100 percent Brettanomyces beers, saisons, sours, and other whimsies, all barrel-aged.
KEY BEER
The dry-hopped, tropical-tasting Hop Savant series is brett-fermented and then barrel-aged and soured-up pale ale showcasing new school hops like Galaxy and Citra. “Wild Wild Brett,” an early experiment of all-brett beers based on the color spectrum is now a part of the Crooked Stave lore, too. Wild Wild Brett Yellow was a sour beer flavored with the following menagerie: turmeric, mango, East Indian spices (garam masala: ginger, coriander, green and black cardamom, Tellicherry peppercorns, nutmeg, date mace, Ceylon cinnamon, Jamaican allspice, Madagascar clove, and Szechuan peppercorns.
PROST BREWING COMPANY
2540 19th St. • Denver, CO 80211 (303) 729-1175 • prostbrewing.com • Established: 2012
SCENE & STORY
If you’re a self-respecting beer fanatic, you’ll make it to Denver. If you’re a full-on, dyed-in-the-wool beer acolyte like myself, you’re going during GABF. And one of the most beloved traditions of that weekend (along with late nights at the Falling Rock Tap House, and Star Bar) is an afternoon at Prost, which, in stark contrast to Crooked Stave and other breweries focused on barrel-aged sour and wild beers, is 100 percent committed to clean, German-style beers served up deliciously fresh. And what beers they are. It’s a short cab ride (or a long walk) from downtown, but a late-afternoon visit to Prost for a couple of steins of hef, helles, or what have you is just about as relaxing as doing the real thing in Germany. No matter what you do, make sure to get a look at the shiny, copper brewhouse itself. Prost reports it’s a “Ziemann GmbH, built in 1963, formerly installed at Bucher Bräu in the German city of Grafenau and used there until 1984. In 1984 it was overhauled and sold to Brauerei-Gasthof Hümmer of Breitengüßbach, Germany, a village in the Franconian region of Bavaria.” In other words, it’s the real thing.
PHILOSOPHY
German beer styles, expertly crafted. You drink it at long wooden tables, with the sun streaming in. What else matters?
KEY BEER
Keller-Pils, a golden, unfiltered, breadysoft zwickelbier of 4.6% ABV with crisp noble hops flavor, took gold at the 2013 GABF. One taste and you’ll know why.
FORMER FUTURE BREWING CO.
1290 S. Broadway • Denver, CO 80210 (720) 441-4253 • embracegoodtaste.com • Established: 2014
SCENE & STORY
James was a high school science teacher with a microbiology background. Sarah was a marketing major who worked in customer service, pursuing a graduate degree in counseling. The duo fell in love with beer while taking a New Belgium tour (true story) and decided shortly after their wedding that they would open their own space. How’s that for romantic? The brewery, a long narrow space with lots of white and wood, provides a simultaneously warm, cozy, rustic, and industrial feeling. The bar itself is made of an old, shiny, rivet-covered 1950s Cessna airplane wing, and the lights above the bar are fabricated from old runway cones. Pendants throughout the taproom are made from barrel rings.
PHILOSOPHY
Think about the term “former future.” To me, it sounds a lot like an alternate path not taken—like the paths both Sarah and James Howat were on. In keeping with that spirit, “we like to produce beers that take people by surprise,” Sarah told me. “Sure, you might be drinking a porter, but it’s a salted caramel porter, and it tends to make people say, ‘Wow.’ We focus on balanced, approachable, yet different beers—everything from pale ales to German doppelbocks to Belgian tripels to Berliner weisse and those English porters.”
Beers Made By Walking is a long-running collaboration project helmed by Portlander Eric Steen. The concept is simple: Steen and his cohorts invite brewers and beer fans on hikes both in the wild and across urban areas to forage for ingredients (from sagebrush to shagbark hickory and everything in between) and talk about beer. The brewers later brew with these ingredients, and, over time, the collaborations multiply, yielding enough beer for truly interesting parties across the country. The beers, understandably, veer into esoteric territory, often deliciously. In 2015, Denver’s Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project brewed a saison with Colorado white sage, Colorado chanterelles, dill, and rosemary salt. Or how about Scratch brewing’s stein beer, brewed with pink granite rocks heated in white oak embers and added to the boil, which was bittered with shortleaf pine, cedar, coreopsis blossoms, wild quinine, and hops? Learn more and sign up for a hike at BeersMadeBy Walking.com.
KEY BEER
Aside from the salted caramel porter? Ask about their award-winning Black Project line, 100 percent spontaneous and wild beers which never see any lab-cultured yeast. On the contrary, the Howats hoist an ersatz coolship on the roof and let Denver’s night air do some magic. “We want to educate our customer, to connect with our customer, and most of all, sow them with the beauty and intricacies that can come from true wild fermentation under knowledgeable care,” says Sarah.
THE GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL
September or October, annually Colorado Convention Center • 700 14th St. (near intersection of Colfax and Speer Blvds.) Denver, CO 80202 • (303) 447-0816 • greatamericanbeerfestival.com
SCENE & STORY
What do you get when you take 50,000 beer lovers, 500 breweries, over 2,000 of their latest creations, and mash them all together for three sunny fall days in Denver? The Great American Beer Festival is what you get. What started over thirty years ago with just a few friends from small breweries and about forty on the list is today the mother of all beer festivals.
It’s also a significant event for the brewers that submit beers for judging, culminating in the all-important Saturday morning medal announcements that generate roars of approval and surprise. The atmosphere is nothing if not raucous at times—crowds can get boisterous, loud, drunk, and (alas) even sick, but it’s unforgettable to weave through the seemingly endless aisles of smiling brewers, servers, and beer fanatics celebrating the mighty abundance of it all. Wacky costumes? Yep. Silent disco? Definitely a hot spot. It can be a bit dizzying at first, but after a few tastes, the entire thing seems like the smartest festival ever created, as long as you pace yourself.
“If you’ve never been to the beer festival before,” says GABF founder Charlie Papazian, “it’s very important to remember that it’s not a sprint, it’s not a marathon—it’s a 100-mile run. Or, actually, a 2,200-beer run.” The savvy taster arrives early for the earliest session and comes with a plan, having studied the layout of the exhibitor hall, which is organized geographically beneath a massive banner of the late British beer writer Michael Jackson, a.k.a the Beer Hunter, whose thoughtful gaze should inspire considered sampling. And yet, with
out fail, a few minutes into any of the sessions (ticket holders should carefully study the hours, which are posted online and supplied at sign-in), all plans for quiet discovery seem to go out the window as the biggest assemblage of beer in the world works its magic on the crowd.
Still, especially at the first session, brewers are on hand dispensing beer from behind the taps. The key strategy, beyond that of all-important moderation, is to coordinate meals and hydration throughout the festival to avoid overdoing it, and to pick a hotel that’s close to the convention center so you can recharge your batteries easily for sideshows or the after-session pub crawls to Wynkoop, the Falling Rock Taphouse, Euclid Hall, and others, where many of the brewers themselves gather to catch up.
PHILOSOPHY
From end-to-end, GABF is a celebration of everything that craft beer has achieved in the United States—the vibrancy, the variety, the quality, the fun, and ambition behind it all. It’s impossible not to come away awed at what America’s small breweries have achieved, and with a broad smile on your face.
KEY BEER
They’re all key.
WYNKOOP BREWING CO.
1634 18th St. • Denver, CO 80202 (303) 297-2700 • wynkoop.com • Established: 1988
SCENE & STORY
The Wynkoop (as it’s sometimes known) is a vast, three-story bar with acres of pool tables on the second floor and an inviting downstairs bar area. The place holds a special place in Colorado beer history: Colorado governor (and former Denver mayor) John Hickenlooper was part of the vanguard that made it Colorado’s first brewpub.
The Great American Ale Trail (Revised Edition) Page 16