365 Days, 365 Beers

Over a year ago, Austin Sherwood, the beer buyer and general manager at Coaltrain Wine & Spirits, told me that he was inspired to try a new beer every day for an entire year. He documented his journey on Instagram at @asherwoo24 with weekly photos of the beers he drank. I gotta say that as the weeks went on, I was not only impressed, but downright jealous of some of the beers he was able to try. It looks like he had a blast. As the last couple photos were being posted, we asked Austin if he'd like to share his journey with our readers. Here's his story.

The journey is complete. It was fun and educational.

So why did I do it?

Recap of Rendezvous at the Rock Beer Festival

Photo by Janette Wygant.

With so many beer festivals popping up every year, it's becoming difficult to decide which ones to visit. The number of festivals is becoming so large, even breweries are having to pick and choose which festivals to support and attend. More and more festivals are beginning to pay breweries for the beer they pour, understanding that constant donation requests are becoming increasingly demanding. I think the growing number of festivals causes disappointing tap lineups at festivals. Breweries are, more often than not, having to bring their flagship beers and leaving the smaller batch releases for their tap rooms. This can be good for smaller and newer breweries for getting their name out there, so we understand that. For beer geeks, it is refreshing to discover a long list of newly released, barrel aged, and seasonal beers. Visiting a brewery's tap room isn't always feasible, so finding a festival they're bringing these beers to is the next best thing. Rendezvous at the Rock, which took place on August 24th, was a fantastic festival for this very reason.

Rendezvous at the Rock kicked off its inaugural year pairing up with the Colorado Brewers Guild. This festival hosted by Rockyard Brewing was a hit, and featured several fantastic, newly released beers. The Colorado Brewers Guild is a great non-profit organization that really makes a difference in the craft beer community in Colorado. Supporting them and finding several exciting beers is always a treat.

Beer Thoughts: Re-Look at Buddha Nuvo

Beer Info:
The Buddha Nuvo was a collaborative beer with about fourteen Colorado breweries. The funds raised from sales go to the Colorado Brewer's Guild. This beer features Buddha's Hand fruit, pumpkin, spelt, oats, peppercorns, ten strains of Brettanomyces and Saison yeast, was aged in French Oak Chardonnay barrels, bottle conditioned with local honey, and it sits at 12% ABV. Here's photos of the making of, the bottling, and our first review of Buddha Nuvo. Now that it's aged for about 9 months, we thought we'd give it another look.

Beer Thoughts: Rockyard Olde BroAle

Beer Info:
Olde BroAle is a part of Rockyard's Homebrewers Gone Wild program. They invite a Colorado-based homebrew club to make beer in a specific style, choose the one they feel is working best and then rebrew the beer on their commercial system, and the homebrew club gets to participate in the whole thing. For this one, our local brew club, the Brew Brothers of Pikes Peak, made an Old Ale from John Garbett's recipe.

Brew Bros. of Pikes Peak: Homebrewer's Gone Wild

Brew Bros, friends, and family gather to help scale up the homebrew at Rockyard.

A couple times a year Jim Stinson and Kjell Wygant at Rockyard Brewing, in Castle Rock, invite a Colorado based homebrew club to enter a competition through Rockyard called Homebrewer's Gone Wild. One beer is chosen, it is then scaled up and brewed on the large commercial system at Rockyard, all the people in the homebrew club get to come and help make the beer, and then the beer is bottled and available for purchase at liquor stores around the state. This is a pretty cool series, as any homebrewer would love to work on a commercial system AND love to see their beer on the shelves.

John Garbett doing a yeast count for the Ringwood Ale yeast.

Rockyard extended the invitation to our local Colorado Springs area homebrew club, the Brew Brother's of Pikes Peak (BBoPP). The challenge was to come up with an original recipe for either an Old Ale or a Scottish Ale. John Garbett, who just resigned as four-year president of the club, won the friendly competition with his Old Ale. I wasn't able to make it to the brew day on Saturday but here's what fellow homebrewer Robert Cloutier reported:

Buddha Nuvo is Bottled and Almost Ready

Last week the collaborative and long-awaited Buddha Nuvo beer was bottled. You might remember this beer from our earlier image recap of the brew day. Check out that earlier post to see more info about how the beer was made and who contributed what in making it. The beer was originally brewed on Feburary 11th, and after initial fermentation it was stored in Oak Barrels. Numerous breweries all over Colorado have had a hand in the making of this beer, whether it was help conceptualizing it, providing equipment, ingredients, or simply lending a helping hand during production. The beer is a fundraiser for the Colorado Brewer's Guild. More information on that, where to find the beer, and a lot more pictures are below. I had a video but it's having problems. I'll post it later if I can get it to work (sorry Kjell!)

Here's the final product, dipped in wax and signed by
Jim Stinson of Rockyard and Jason Yester of Trinity

The beer is a 12% Saison, conceived initially by Jason at Trinity and added to and changed by many other brewers. Rockyard Brewing in Castle Rock provided the brewing space, fermentation space, checked in on the beer, and is handling the distribution. The malt bill of the beer consists of a complex blend Weyerman Pilsen, Vienna, Rye, and spelt for a golden color yet vinous body. Pumpkin was added in the boil for the smooth textures dancing over the palate. Several varieties of whole peppercorns were added to the boil to further reinforce the expected spiciness of this Saison. 5 distinct yeasts creating a spicy and fruity ester profile. 3 of the yeasts were provided by Troy at AC Golden. Post fermentation the batch aged on American Oak Chardonnay barrels, 6 varieties of Bretta, and the rare fruit known as Buddha's Hand. Buddha's hand was also in the boil.

A look from the top on bottling day

We had sampled the un-aged version of the beer at the Saison Fest earlier this year and it seemed quite promising. The oak barrels were provided by Chad Yakobson of Crooked Stave. Earlier in the week he and Jim Stinson mixed the beer from the barrels and prepped it for the bottles. The bottles were pre-labeled by some very appreciated folks at Rockyard.

Collaborative Buddha Nuvo Image Recap

Last Friday a gathering of Colorado brewers took place. The project they were/are working on is a collaborative beer called Buddha Nuvo, named after the Buddha's Hand citrus fruit that has been added to the beer. There are more breweries involved in the project that I can beautifully list here, but I've got a bunch of pictures from the brew date below. Here's a bit of information about the beer:

Our malt bill consists of a complex blend Weyerman Pilsen, Vienna, Rye, and spelt for a golden color yet vinous body. Pumpkin was added in the boil for the smooth textures dancing over the palate. Several varieties of whole peppercorns were added to the boil to further reinforce the expected spiciness of this Saison. In fermentation, we mixed 5 distinct yeasts creating a spicy and fruity ester profile. Post fermentation the batch will age on American Oak Chardonnay barrels, 6 varieties of Bretta, and the rare fruit known as Buddha's Hand. Expected ABV is 12%. (Buddha's Hand was also added to the boil).

If you want more information on this beer, there is hours worth of information online about it at this point. Jason Yester took a lot of video from the event, so check his video-blog page to see the activities. Additionally, Rockyard Brewing set up a blog page devoted to this collaborative beer, which includes a wonderful entry of the email exchange happening between the brewers. Check it out!

This is what a Buddha's Hand looks like. Pretty friendly looking fruit, eh?

Jason Yester of Trinity Brewing mashing in the grains. *

Jason Yester, Jason Leeman of Rock Bottom COS, and Tim Myers of Strange Brewing checking mash temperatures.

Jim Stinson of Rockyard Brewing checking to see if the mashing procedure had finished extracting sugars from the malt. They were shooting for 16-18 degrees Plato.