Ska Brewing to release Belgian dubbel

Ska Brewing Co. on Wednesday will release the latest beer in its Local Series, Sethvleteren 8.

The beer comes courtesy of Seth Townsend, who won this year's Ska homebrewing competition and will have his beer entered in the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am Competition in late September in Denver.

Sethvleteren 8 is an organic, Belgian-style dubbel. It should be strong and yeasty.

It might not be dubbel weather yet, but I'll buy a couple of bottles for when temperatures cool off.

(For now, I'm enjoying my dwindling supplies of Mexican Logger. For what it's worth, everyone around town is running out of the summer seasonal. Get some before it's gone if you wish).

Last year's winner of Ska's homebrewing competition was really nice. Clancy's Black Beer was a German-style Schwarzbier with a malty and chocolatey taste.

The great thing about this one is it's been pre-screened for deliciousness. As with all the beers in Ska's Local Series, Sethvleteren 8 will be available in 22-ounce bottles in and around Durango.

About that name: presumably, it's a play on Westvleteren 8, a rare Belgian beer that is something of a Holy Grail for beer geeks. A lot of knowledgeable people say it's one of the best beers in the world. Not that Ska is setting Seth up for any pressure or anything.

Anyway, stop by Ska on Wednesday evening to meet Seth and get a taste of this organic, Belgian-style dubbel.

Townsend wins Ska homebrewing competition

Catching up on some news, a fellow by the name of Seth Townsend won Ska Brewing Co.'s GABF Pro-Am Homebrew Competition with his Organic Dubbel.

Townsend won "Best In Show" and also took top honors in the Belgian Strong Ale category.

As with past winners, Townsend will have his beer entered in the Pro-Am category of the Great American Beer Festival – the nation’s largest beer competition and festival. The beer will also be brewed on a commercial scale for release as part of Ska’s popular Local Series, which is distributed around Durango and Southwest Colorado. Townsend will have the chance to participate in the commercial scaling and production of his recipe for the Local Series.

Last year's winner, Clancy Calhoun of Aztec, N.M., brewed a tasty Schwarzbier, a dark German-style lager. The nice thing about competitions like these is the winning beers tend to taste good.

Ska has its own roots in homebrewing: the three co-founders all got their start as homebrewers.

“Homebrewers have the kind of DIY spirit that drove us to keep growing and improving," Ska President and co-founder Dave Thibodeau said in a news release. "We really respect that. That’s how a lot of craft breweries — including Ska — came to be."

Townsend is understandably excited at the leap his homebrewing career has just taken.

“My goal this year was to earn a spot in the GABF Pro-Am, so I focused on homebrew competitions that were selecting beers to enter it,” Townsend said. “The best part of this is that I’ll get to work with one of my favorite breweries, right here in Colorado. Honestly, I can’t think of a more fun brewery to be collaborating with to scale up my Organic Dubbel. I think it also shows that organic beer can stand up — and out — in a crowd.”

Chris Swersey, GABF's competition manager, had this to say about the Pro-Am category: “Because so many professional brewers began as homebrewers, the GABF Pro-Am competition is a great reflection of craft brewer unity at all levels. The Pro-Am serves to keep professional brewers and homebrewers in touch with each other, and serves as an exciting competitive forum for both AHA and BA professional members. But most importantly the Pro-Am is fun.”

Complete judging results for Ska' competition can be found here.

Review: Great Divide Colette

The saison is a beautiful thing. Dry, crisp, light, bubbly, flavorful — this traditional Belgian style is the true Champagne of beers (apologies to Miller High Life).

Up till now, however, drinking saison was an expensive proposition. You could get a bottle of Saison Dupont or, my personal favorite, Ommegang Hennepin, but you'd pay something like $10-$12 for a 22-ounce bottle (or the slightly larger 750 ml Champagne-style bottles).

Delicious!

Great Divide Brewing Co. has upended this situation with a game-changer: a truly tasty saison bottled in a six-pack.

Colette just showed up on liquor-store shelves in Durango, packaged in regular 12-ounce brown bottles. It has enjoyed a well-laureled young life, winning a silver medal at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival.

Colette is brewed with barley, wheat and rice and fermented at high temperature with four yeast strains. Like most saisons, it's relatively boozy at 7.3 percent ABV.

It pours a straw yellow, with a healthy, frothy white head of foam that quickly recedes against the strong alcohol content. A tip: when pouring Colette, maybe leave a little bit in the bottle, as mine had a thick layer of yeast gunk on the bottom. Or don't; it's a free country. (And it wasn't due to age — my Colette was bottled on March 3 and poured on April 2).

A wonderful, earthy aroma introduces a dry funk on the palate. The wheat and rice — arguably nontraditional ingredients for this style — are actually nice additions, rounding out and strengthening the flavor. The carbonation pops.

Saisons are not usually hoppy, and Colette follows suit, with very mild hopping laying down a backbeat while the yeast solos up front.

Saisons are just a great summer style, light but very flavorful. Colette is a seasonal release, April through July.

A brewer friend of mine not long ago bitched about how trendy saisons have become. I fail to see the problem.

Colette costs about $9 for a six-pack of 12-ounce bottles. That's 12.5 cents per ounce. Compare that to $10 for a bomber, which comes out to 45 cents per ounce.

Great Divide has made drinking saison much more affordable. Colette is a fantastically tasty beer. You should buy it and drink it. A

Make beer

Ska Brewing Co. is once again hosting a homebrewing competition that serves as a preliminary round for the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am Competition.

The entry deadline is May 9, and beers must be received between April 25 and May 11.

Previous winners include Clancy's Black Beer, a schwarzbier brewed by Clancy Calhoun of Aztec, NM, and a "Merlo" Stout that was aged in oak barrels.

Entries will be judged May 20-21. If the winner joins the American Homebrewers Association, his (or her) winning beer will be sent to Denver to compete in the Great American Beer Festival.

Good luck to this year's entrants. Now get brewing!

Steamworks mounts comeback at GABF

Steamworks Brewing Co. made a strong showing at last weekend's Great American Beer Festival in Denver, taking home three medals, including two golds, to lead Durango's breweries.

Steamworks' Backside Stout won gold in the Oatmeal Stout category (39 entries). What in the Helles? won gold in the Munich-style Helles category (42 entries). And the brewery's Colorado Kolsch, which is now being released in cans, took the silver medal in the German-style Kolsch category (46 entries).

For Steamworks, this represents an impressive comeback after getting skunked at the festival last year. The GABF is widely regarded as the most prestigious beer festival in the U.S., and brewers take a great deal of pride in winning medals in the blind tasting competitions.

For Southwest Colorado's other breweries, Ska Brewing Co. won the bronze medal for its Extra-Special ESB (you may recognize the red can) in the Classic English-style Pale Ale category (29 entries).

In nearby Pagosa Springs, the plucky little Pagosa Brewing Co. won silver in the specialty beer category (23 entries) with its Coconut Porter.

Durango Brewing Co. came home empty, ending its two-year streak of winning gold.

Medals vary a great deal from year to year. One year, a beer won't even place and the next year it will win gold. Still, you can't avoid being impressed by Steamworks' performance. Two golds and a silver is nothing to scoff at.

Colorado Kolsch (4.9 percent ABV, 17 IBUs) is a great summer beer, light but still flavorful. Backside Stout (6.2 percent ABV, 28 IBUs) makes for wonderful quaffing between runs when poured at Dante's or the base lodge at Purgatory.

"This is the first time the Backside Stout has been recognized at the GABF,” said Kris Oyler, Steamworks co-founder, in a news release. “It is one of our original brews, on tap since we opened in 1996. This recognition is long overdue.”

Oyler credited Steamworks brewers Ken Martin and Spencer Roper with the victories.

Congratulations to all the winners. Now start thinking up some recipes for 2011.

Hoppy beers dominate Brewfest

Brewers packed a block of downtown Main Avenue Saturday for the 12th annual San Juan Brewfest, Durango's premier annual beer get-together.

The event brought 25 breweries, mostly from Colorado. Local bands Baby Toro and the Lawn Chair Kings provided the soundtrack.

Beer festivals seem to be coming fast and furious lately; another one was held in Cortez the same day. They could all be considered a warm-up for the mother of all beer festivals, the Great American Beer Festival this weekend (Sept. 16-18) in Denver.

I took it easy at the Brewfest because I had plans later in the day, but I still got to sample the beers that appealed most.

I mostly kept it to hoppy pale ales and IPAs. The few dark beers just didn't appeal under the summer sun. Here's my brief impressions of the beers I tried:

1. Palisade S.O.B. Pale Ale. This little brewery brought an outstanding pale ale to the Brewfest; probably the best beer I tried. The bright, floral, citrusy hops led the way. Simply a great, well-rounded and inviting pale ale.

2. Palisade Dirty Hippie Dark Wheat. Compared to the earlier Palisade beer, this one seemed a little lackluster. It was dark, malty and full-bodied, with a hint of spice. It would probably make a good winter beer but seemed out of place here.

3. Colorado Boy Cask ESB. A delicous, flavorful offering from the little Ridgway brewpub. The cask conditioning favorably showed off the Extra Special Bitter's creamy, lingering, smooth hop bitterness. It again demonstrated the benefits cask conditioning can offer hoppy beers, as Carver's does every time it pours its Cascade Canyon Cask IPA.

4. Ska Hoperation Ivy. The latest Local Series from Durango's own Ska Brewing Co., Hoperation Ivy is an annual fresh-hop IPA. The just-harvested hops from a farm near Montrose lend an oily character to the bitter ale that can't be faked. Fresh-hop (also called wet-hop) beers are always distinctive and often excellent. People who care about conscientious and interesting brewing shouldn't miss this one.

5. Pagosa Pale Ale. This is a perpetual favorite of mine from Pagosa Brewing Co. It's dry-hopped twice with Cascades, and the hops just pop on the tongue. The grassy flavor and lingering bitterness make this a showcase pale ale.

Miscellany: The Brewfest is a blessing in offering beers from around the state usually unavailable in Durango. Furthermore, it benefits a good cause in the United Way of Southwest Colorado (I should mention by way of disclosure that I was admitted to the Brewfest for free to blog about the event).

However, good events can always improve. My suggestions:

1. More food. Some brats were on hand, but that was about it. Perhaps next year, the organizers could extend invitations to a few restaurants so festival-goers who are queasy about eating brats have some other options.

2. Tim Walsworth, the United Way director who organizes the festival, is a magnanimous man who is familiar with my complaint about the glassware. It's no doubt cheaper, and safer, and with fewer headaches, to offer a small plastic sample "mug" than a real pint glass. It's an understandable move.

Still, I would prefer a nice pint glass, which was offered at the Brewfest years ago, for the following reasons: a). A pint glass makes a much better keepsake. Cool pint glasses like the one Ska made for its recent 15th Anniversary party make sweet collectibles. b). Aesthetically, it's much nicer to hold a hefty pint glass than a little plastic thing. c). The plastic mugs aren't adequate to the demands of foamy beer. It's a pain to have to wait for beers to settle in the little vessel. d). Glass indicates a presumption that your customers are responsible adults, rather than potential trouble-makers. That sort of trust goes a long way.

But those complaints are minor. The Brewfest is a fun event, put on for charity, that offers some great beer. I look forward to the lucky 13th year.

The seasons, they change

Craft beer, like leaves, changes with the seasons.

A Budweiser is always a Budweiser. There is no such thing as a fresh-hop Budweiser, nor does Anheuser-Busch InBev brew a Budweiser stout.

This is one of the great advantages and distinctions of craft brewing. Most craft breweries offer anywhere from a half-dozen to 20 distinct beers at any given time, and at least one or two will be seasonal creations.

In the earthy world of craft beer, seasons dictate brewing certain beers.

We can celebrate autumn with fresh-hop beers like Ska's Hoperation Ivy or Steamworks' Wet-Hop Brown. Or we can enjoy bottled out-of-state treats, like Deschutes' Hop Trip. Or we can taste other seasonal creations like Durango Brewing's Colorfest or Steamworks' Ale Diablo.

Just as soon as we tire of wheat beers, light lagers and other summer seasonals, the weather turns cold, encouraging us to move on to stouts, porters and dark lagers.

I've done that myself, drinking within the last week a Session Dark Lager from Full Sail Brewing in Oregon, (a near clone of Durango Brewing's Durango Dark Lager); a Black Butte Porter and a Ska Steel Toe Stout.

Steel Toe (5.4 percent ABV, 29 IBUs) has been around for quite some time, but it came to my attention again by winning a bronze medal in the sweet stout category at last month's Great American Beer Festival. It makes a fantastic dessert beer - I can vouch that it pairs wonderfully with Cherry Garcia.

It won't be long before I'll be enjoying a Backside Stout on tap at Purgatory. Summer is gone, and fall is slipping away. The current temperature in Durango is 43 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, we have an impressive variety of beers to keep us warm through the cold, bleak winter.

Like the sky, it's time for beer drinkers to go dark.

Bickert with his medal-winning beer

Check out this photo from The Durango Herald.

Durango Brewing wins GABF gold, Ska earns medals

Durango had a big showing at last weekend's Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Durango Brewing Co. won gold in the American-style amber lager category for its Durango Colorfest fall seasonal. Colorfest (6.2 percent ABV, 21 IBUs), is on the shelves now in 22-ounce bomber bottles.

Ska Brewing Co. won three medals: silver, English-style brown ale, for Buster Nut Brown; bronze, English-style summer ale, for True Blonde Ale; and bronze, sweet stout, for Steel Toe Stout.

The GABF is the Super Bowl of beer competitions; none is more prestigious. It's a big accomplishment to win any medals, and Durango Brewing and Ska deserve hearty congratulations for their wins.

Some 495 breweries participated, entering 3,308 beers in the competition. Attendance totaled 49,000.

Colorado breweries won 45 medals, outperforming any other state.

A friend who attended sent me this: "Admittedly, as amazing as it was, I really need to go with a battle plan next time. There's so much to taste and you can get really, really lost if you don't plan out your visits. LOT of crappy beers. But then again, a lot of great ones."

Brewers tend to bust out some special beers for GABF, like barrel-aged treats. I wasn't able to go this year. Maybe next time ...

Great American Beer Festival coming up

We are exceptionally lucky to have the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado. The Denver fest is easily the biggest and best of its kind.

The Denver Post has a good preview here. Although, if I were going, I certainly wouldn't waste my time on Fat Tire, as the author suggests. There's way too many good beers at GABF to bother with anything that can be found at every neighborhood liquor store.

The festival will be held Sept. 24-26. Tickets already have sold out.