Beer during wartime

"Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop."

- Winston Churchill, 1944. From the 365 Bottles of Beer for the Year desk calendar.

Working on it

Soggy Coaster is working on a long post about a trip last weekend to the Front Range that included stops at Avery Brewing, Great Divide Brewing and the Falling Rock Tap House.

In the meantime, your correspondent enjoyed a pint of Santa Fe Prickly Pear Hefeweizen at Lady Falconburgh's in Durango last night. It was refreshing. The pear note was subdued, unlike in Carver's tasty seasonal Braggot. Unfortunately, like most hefeweizens, the Sante Fe brew disappeared before I realized I was drinking it. I hate it when that happens.

Also, as Anon. helpfully noted in a previous comment, Russian River's Pliney the Elder remains on tap at Falc's. I have no idea how much is left, but it was still there as of Monday night.

Ska triumphs at beer awards

Ska Brewing Co. went all Michael Phelps at the 2009 North American Beer Awards, winning three medals, including two gold medals.

The winners at the 2009 North American Beer Awards, held June 2-5, were:

*Modus Hoperandi IPA, Gold, American-style India Pale Ale
*ESB Special Ale, Gold, Best Bitter
*Buster Nut Brown Ale, Bronze, English Brown Ale

Ska President Dave Thibodeau pointed out in a news release that both gold medal winners, the Modus and ESB, are available in cans. Ska has been pushing the cans hard, and sales of the cans are overtaking bottles.

Modus is Ska's newest year-round release.

Silverton Brewery won Gold for its Ice Pick Ale in the Strong Bitter ESB category. Why is Southwest Colorado so bitter?

The full list of winners is available here.

Things to do in Denver (when you're alive)

Soggy Coaster is driving to Denver on Thursday for a long weekend in the city. This means two things relevant to Beer at 6512:

1. Blog posts will be a little light here until next week.

2. I welcome your suggestions, particularly from my Front Range readers. I'm planning to visit Avery Brewing in Boulder, Falling Rock Tap House and maybe Great Divide Brewing. Perhaps Wynkoop, too, if there's time. Is there anything else I can't miss?

Russian River flows to Durango

Some very good news: Russian River beers are now available in Durango.

The Sonoma County, California, brewery makes some very tasty Belgian-style ales and is also well known for its line of IPAs.

Until Saturday, Soggy Coaster had never seen a Russian River beer in Durango. Fortunately, Star Liquors has apparently started carrying Russian River, as a visit to the store yesterday turned up the Damnation, a Belgian-style golden ale (7 percent ABV, 25 IBUs), and the Blind Pig IPA (6 percent ABV).

Soggy Coaster last encountered Russian River on a trip to Oregon last winter, when he thoroughly enjoyed a Damnation.

Your correspondent couldn't resist picking up another bottle of Damnation at Star. It wasn't cheap - $11 or so - but the bottle-conditioned, corked 750 ml ale will be worth every penny. A friend picked up the Blind Pig, and if Soggy's brief taste is any guide, it's one of the better IPAs out there.

Service, please

Soggy Coaster encountered a classic problem during a visit to Steamworks Brewing Co. on Wednesday: He was served the wrong beer.

I ordered a dandelion saison, a recent release from the Durango Bootleggers Society, the consortium of local brewers. It's one of those beers that will be around a short time then disappear, maybe forever. It's light and tasty with just a hint of dandelion. In short, it's a fine spring/summer beer.

My first reaction to the beer I was served was: "Boy, that's a good deal hoppier than I remember." After the second sip, I knew there was no possibility that it was the beer I ordered.

I was annoyed at first, fearing the bartender served me a different beer for whatever reason (a blown keg, perhaps) and hoped I wouldn't notice. So I politely complained to a server. He asked me to pour a little into a clean glass and took a sip. It was the Steam Engine Lager, he said. That's a fine beer, to be sure, but not what I ordered.

To his credit, the server went to the bar and poured me the saision I had ordered. He didn't charge me extra. He explained that the saison tap and the Steam Engine tap are adjacent. I compared the color and the two beers were virtually identical. So I chalked it up to an honest mistake.

Still, it's a fairly basic thing to receive the beer you ordered. If you don't, you shouldn't be shy to bring it up.

I feel like in Durango, service is sometimes pretty terrible. This seems especially true in establishments like Steamworks that are very busy and tend to attract a ton of tourists. Most servers, however, will correct a mistake if you ask. You just have to tell them.

The Perfect Pour

The Brewers Association, the industry trade group for craft brewers, has just released an almost hilariously detailed manual on pouring quality draughts.

It's probably of interest only to hard-core beer geeks, brewers and homebrewers, but if that's you, check it out.

A day in the life

A Stone Pale Ale, enjoyed at the bar of Mutu's Italian Kitchen, 701 E. 2nd Ave., Durango. Beers there are $2.50 during happy hour.

Skavery: Interview with Dave Thibodeau, Part VII

This is Part VII of Soggy Coaster's interview with Dave Thibodeau, president and co-founder of Ska Brewing Co. Previous installments are posted below. This is the final installment of the interview. Thanks for your patience if you've read all seven parts; I broke it up for polite consumption. This final installment has some good information about new Ska beers:

Soggy Coaster: What is your favorite Ska beer?

Dave Thibodeau: Right now, I’m in two worlds: the Modus (Hoperandi IPA) world and Mexican Logger, because I’ve only had a couple since we came out with it. That’ll probably be my deal for the summer.

I’ve got to say, overall, my favorite beer we make is our Ten Pin Porter. It’s a very dark beer that’s very drinkable. The balance within that particular porter is on the money. I think it goes with a variety of foods. It’s harder to drink when it’s 100 degrees out here. Once the sun’s gone down in the evening, all summer long and all winter long, definitely, I would say Ten Pin Porter.

Soggy: Interesting. What’s your favorite non-Ska beer? Can you say that without stepping on any toes?

Thibodeau: Oh, definitely. If I had one, I could. It’s the same thing: I go through moods and seasons change. I just had a case of New Glarus Raspberry Tart that one of our bookkeepers came back with, and I bought a case from her. I drank one bottle each night. It was a case of 12. By the 12th bottle, I was like, I’ve had enough. But for those first 11 days, it was one of my favorite things.

There’s definitely some standbys that I have. One of them is kind of similar to Pinstripe: Left Hand Sawtooth is a good standby. I like Victory Prima Pils. And like I said, these are all beers where the breweries make a lot crazier beers. But I like beers that I can drink a fair amount of. I like Stone’s Pale Ale. I’m not going to name any of the bigger (beers), because that seems to change every time I taste another one. It’s like holy crap, this is really good, and it’s the same if you throw the Belgian beers in there. When I say the word favorite, I like to use a standby, and those are the standby beers for me. Avery’s IPA, you know.

Soggy: Any upcoming events we should know about?

Thibodeau: The summer is so busy. The Silverton Jamboree. That is, I want to say, the second week of June. There’ll be a lot of stuff on Main street, Fourth of July, of course. There’s several music festivals in Colorado, the Crestone Music Festival. Then of course, all the beer festivals. We have a ska festival the third weekend of June in Denver. I think it’s called the Denver Ska Festival. Ska music in downtown Denver. There will be some good names there: the Aquabats, I think Mustard Plug. It’s solely Ska beer. We’re sponsoring it. Here at the brewery, music outside every Thursday. And we have some random events.

This is a really cool one I’ll throw out there: Avery and Ska are doing a collaboration beer in June. It’s going to be kind of a bigger hefeweizen. It’s going to be basically traditional, just punked up a bit.

We’re riding our road bikes during the Tour de France. We’re having a kickoff party in Boulder on Monday and riding our road bikes from Avery’s place to our place in Durango. So about 450 miles. Then we’re releasing our collaboration beer with a party when we get here. I think we’re going to have a ska band here playing. I’m hoping we get a big name or two in Durango’s cycling world to come out here, and we’re donating proceeds from that release night to the La Plata County Safe Roads Coalition.

Each night on the way, we’re stopping at a brewery to raise money for hopefully a local bicycle-affiliated nonprofit. I think we go Boulder to Breckenridge to Buena Vista, back over, I want to say, to Crested Butte, then to Ouray and then to Durango. So yeah, hundreds of miles over five days with a fundraiser every night at a brewery and then we release the collaboration “Skavery” beer.

Soggy: I’m excited to here that.

Thibodeau: Yeah, that’ll be cool.

Soggy: I just had an Avery Salvation the other night, a Belgian.

Thibodeau: That’s a good beer. I’m excited to do a collaboration with Adam (Avery).

Soggy: You’re both good breweries.

Thibodeau: That bring one more kind of bike-related event to mind, the single-speed world championships. I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag on that yet, but we’ll hopefully do some stuff with Oskar Blues and New Belgium for that. We’re having the awards here at the brewery on, I want to say, the third Saturday in September. It’ll be interesting to say the least.

Soggy: So what else should the masses know? Is there anything you want to add at all?

Thibodeau: We have a lot of exciting stuff coming up this year. After we get that assorted 12-pack of cans out, I think we’re going to try to release our Euphoria (pale ale) that we brew with Venture Snowboards. We’re going to try to get that out in six-packs and release it outside of Durango. It’s just been kind of a Southwest Colorado release. And then we’re going to have a holiday ale, too. So a lot of stuff going on this year, and I think that’s about it. Pretty exciting, though, we’ll have a lot of regular beer releases here at the brewery.

Soggy: Sounds good.

Avery revamps website

Avery Brewing in Boulder has completely revamped its website.

This is fortunate, because their old website looked like a '90s-era placeholder from the days when people had websites just to post basic information. Their new website is worth tooling around.

Avery, in my opinion, is one of the best breweries in Colorado, and it's right up there with the best of the best nationwide. The man behind the brewery, Adam Avery, isn't afraid to brew the kinds of beers that beer geeks love: Belgians, imperial stouts, barrel-aged beers brewed with Brettanomyces yeast.

Thankfully, Ska distributes Avery locally. They're in most Durango liquor stores. So far, I haven't had a bad Avery beer, and I fully endorse the ones I've had: India Pale Ale, Out of Bounds Stout, Karma Ale, Brabant, Salvation, Czar, Fifteen, Ale to the Chief! and Collaboration Not Litigation.

Their run-of-the-mill brews, like the stout and the IPA, are always well-balanced and tasty. Their special releases like the Collaboration Not Litigation Belgian blend are truly special.

Of local interest, Ska is brewing a collaboration beer with Avery. It'll be something like an imperial hefeweizen. The breweries are planning to release it in July. (This according to my next and final installment of the Dave Thibodeau interview). Soggy Coaster has high hopes for this beer, given its provenance.

I'm hoping to visit Avery's tasting room while I'm in the area two weekends from now. Expect a full report.