What we're drinking: New and old

Recently I decided it was time to make my family's special cornmeal crust deep dish pizza. I was thinking about what beer to pair with the beast of a dinner. The thing is at least two inches tall, packed with bacon, fennel sausage, cheeses, peppers, and more. It's heavy stuff. Like divine providence, a package containing Breckenridge Ophelia Hoppy Wheat showed up at my doorstep (Thanks Breck!). I decided to give it a shot and I'm glad I did. The beer has an immediate classic feel to it. It's super easy drinking, it has some lemony and tropical fruit in the background, finishes super crisp to cut through the grease in the pizza, and the Mosaic (a top 3 hop for me) and Palisade hops are amped up enough, but also subdued enough to be super fun. The beer provided a very nice balance to the meal, and I finished it much sooner than I realized. I imagine this will be a popular beer for many, including the beer geeks due to it's subtle complexity. At 5%, it'll be easy to have a few pints. ~Eric

While Eric was enjoying some new Breckenridge treats, I've been exploring some old favorites from my time in Durango. The latest brew to hit my glass, True Blonde Dubbel, has been one of my favorites of the "big" beers that Ska produces. The bright yellow wax job sets this one apart, and harkens me back to days sitting by the Animas river at "the beach"watching tubers float by. While in years past, I would have hogged the whole bottle, I've been introducing my younger sister to different beers in the hope that she'll convert to the beer side of things. She's a self-proclaimed non-beer drinker, but thoroughly enjoyed the Dubbel Blonde, so I'm one beer closer to converting her! We enjoyed this while we prepared some homemade stroganoff, and to no one's surprise the slightly spicy belgian notes and honey really melded well with the creamy sauces! ~ Ryan

What's been your favorite lately? Anything we should check out?
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Breckenridge Beer Dinner this Saturday at Brewer's Republic

Breckenridge Brewery has a pretty awesome looking beer dinner coming up this weekend in Colorado Springs, the menu was just released and it looks great. This whole week is jam-packed with all sorts of beer events across the Pikes Peak Region, so if you find yourself wanting to hang out in the downtown area, I'd give this dinner a big recommendation. Breck will have two really special beers available including a Barrel Aged Summerbright, which is usually a pretty easy drinking wheat beer, and they'll have a firkin of their Oatmeal Stout with the added goodness of chocolate and coffee. They'll also have seasonals and other great favorites.

The dinner is at Brewer's Republic on Saturday, Sept. 21st. Tickets are $35 and include 5 courses with 5 beers. Tickets are available at Brewer's Republic and at Coaltrain, you must pick them up in advance if you want a spot. Here's the menu:

Breckenridge Barrel Aged Summerbright Ale
Caesar salad with chevre, served in a parmesan basket.
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Breckenridge Autumn Ale
Pumpkin ravioli with a gouda cream sauce
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Breckenridge 471 Double IPA
Smoked beef brisket tamale
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Breckenridge Vanilla Porter
Beef back rib with blackberry habanero glaze
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Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout firkin with Chocolate and Coffee
Chocolate Creme Brulee

Brewer's Republic is located at 112 N. Nevada, Colorado Springs, CO.
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Craf Beer: Beer Commercials and Press Releases

Breckenridge Brewery has once again released a series of very funny videos that mock the advertising and gimmicky products of large industrial brewers. My favorite of the new series is the one I've pasted above where you must conceptualize a room full of half-naked women because for some reason the lime flavored beer just isn't doing what we thought it would.

To take a little rabbit trail here:
These videos were released yesterday, just hours after the Brewer's Association released their now infamous press release about "Craft vs. Crafty" beer where they define some lines between what is and what is not a craft brewery. A main argument is that large breweries, non-craft, breweries are trying to enter the craft beer market with faux beer products (such as a lime flavored beer that magically fills the room with half-naked women). The article has received lots and lots of attention from beer writers, the majority of it seems good with people saying they are glad that the BA is defining lines and specifically calling attention to many of the products, like Blue Moon, that are passed off as craft beer but should not be called craft beer. Not all the attention is good though.

One major problem I have with this press release is that breweries like AC Golden, Widmer, and Goose Island are now categorized as non-craft brewers. You can't tell me that. These guys are not making faux beer products. Widmer has recently released a phenomenal series of rotating IPA six packs, they've bottled a Gose beer for crying out loud, Goose Island produces one of the best stouts in the entire country, AC Golden just won medals at the World Beer Cup in the Brett category and a medal at GABF for their Bourbon Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout. Yes, I understand the way the ownership of those companies works. No, I don't care because these are not faux beers and their advertising is not despicable. As Jeff Alworth aptly concludes that has a consumer, "I reserve the right to make decisions about how I think about beer. I get to call Goose Island and Widmer craft brewers if I wish. I decide whether a company makes good beer, and I get to ignore who the owner is."

Ultimately the lines that the BA has drawn mean nothing to me and just because they set them does not mean that I'll stop buying beer from these folks. What is the practical application from this press release? Does the BA want to put Craft Brewer stamps on bottled beer? The same way that products with organic certification receive a logo? Perhaps keeping non-craft-brewers out of the Great American Beer Festival? I'm not entirely sure the point of where they're heading or how this changes anything for the consumer. I much more appreciate the way Breckenridge handles the situation, to point out the real flaws of the larger brewers through satire.

***Update - I'd like to direct your attention to the first comment on this post (so far the only one). Anonymous brings up a good point, that part of the release talks about a "call for transparency in brand ownership and for information to be clearly presented in a way that allows beer drinkers to make an informed choice about who brewed the beer they are drinking." This is a point that I over-looked because of the rest of statement and it is valid. I think it would be good to have parent companies portray their identity on their product. How do you do that in a pub though? But I'd still like to emphasize my overall main point, the stickiness of using 'craft' as a validation for the better of the two. ***

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Clarifications on Breckenridge Brewery's Sticky Situation

Today the Denver Business Journal reported that Breckenridge Brewery is looking to expand out of state due to Colorado laws that prohibit an in-state expansion. We posted a link on our FB page to the Denver Business Journal article that brought it to our attention, but I thought I'd share it here too in case you didn't see it. I also want to try to wrap my head around all this and put a bunch of information, from multiple articles all on one page, and to clarify a few questions in my head. A good amount of the information here is from the Denver Business Journal, but I also borrowed from Westword, and I quote from emails with Breckenridge Brewery and the Colorado Beer Distributors Association.