Women enjoying beer

A Kansas City marketing firm has launched an initiative, and website, called Women Enjoying Beer.

One of their first events was a private tasting/focus group with the well-regarded Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City.

Props to those ladies. It would be cooler if it were a more organic initiative, rather than a marketing drive, but it seems to be some of both.

Soggy Coaster has always wondered why more women don't drink craft beer. Many seem to prefer drinking wine, a fact backed up by a recent Gallup poll that the Beervana blog discussed. Only 21 percent of women named beer as their preferred alcoholic beverage.

What's wrong?

Maybe it is a lack of marketing targeted toward women or, alternately, saturation marketing targeted at men.

Women I know who have been introduced to good craft beer have developed a taste for it. There are great, approachable beers out there and beers that taste remarkably like wine. Not that the ladies can't handle something like an imperial stout or double IPA.

I suspect that beer has just been marketed to men for so long that women don't think it's for them. If Women Enjoying Beer can help change that perception, we'll all be the better for it.

Ska, Avery tour Colorado

The fellas from Ska Brewing Co. and Avery Brewing Co. have launched their Tour of Colorado.

On bicycle, the brewers will wind from Boulder to Durango over six days, conquering nine mountain passes in a 426-mile journey.

When they arrive on Friday, July 24, the brewers will release Wheelsucker Wheat Ale, a much-anticipated (by me, anyway) collaboration beer, at Ska HQ in Durango. (Specifics on that later this week).

Dave Thibodeau, co-founder and president of Ska, is blogging the trip over at Wheelsucking Brewers.

Each night of the tour, the bicycling brewers will stop at a brewery to raise money for charity and further the brewing brotherhood.

Soggy Coaster wishes the travelers well, and has high hopes for the beer. Stay tuned for more.

What's your Top 5?

The blogger over at The Drunken Polack had an interesting idea: Name your top five favorite craft beers of all time. Do it quickly, don't overthink it and don't revise your answer.

Here's what I came up with, in no particular order:

Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Avery IPA
Deschutes The Dissident
Stone Levitation
Russian River Damnation

I noticed I neglected all of the great dark beers out there. That probably has something to do with it being a hot July day. I also struggle with the complete lack of Durango beers. I don't intend that as a slight to our local brewers, who make many fine beers. That's just what I thought up in about 30 seconds.

What is your top 5? Please leave a comment.

Durango visitor loves everything

Eli Shayotovich of Beer Tap TV swung through Durango recently, hanging out with the Ska Brewing guys and Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch.

He also made an apparently memorable visit to Lady Falconburgh's Barley Exchange in downtown Durango. It is a very well-stocked beer bar, but damn, I don't know if I'd be that effusive in my praise for anybody but possibly Snoop Dogg.

If you're interested, the Durango episode may be viewed here.

The Stinger

As it turns out, Soggy Coaster did find something interesting in Telluride.

Smuggler's Brewpub had 16 beers on tap, an impressive number for such a small operation.

I opted for a pint of braggot called The Stinger. Braggot, a hybrid of beer and mead, is a refreshing summer style. My only prior experience with braggot was Carver's pear version.

The Stinger (7.3 percent ABV) was everything I'd hoped: medium-bodied, golden in color and carrying a pleasant honey sweetness.

I peeked in Smuggler's brewery downstairs. It looks like a long, narrow closet. I don't know how Smuggler's brews so many beers in so little space.

Beer in Telluride

It seems like most of Durango is trekking north this weekend to see George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic in Telluride.

This provides a great opportunity to stop by Smuggler's Brewpub, right downtown. Their website is unfortunately somewhat rudimentary, but at least you can check out their beer lineup.

Rocky Mountain Rye, a Great American Beer Festival gold-medal winner, is a perennial favorite. It should taste refreshing during the warm weather this weekend.

If you like hoppy beers, they have two IPAs and the Imperial San Juan SkyHop, a 100+ IBU hop bomb .

Smuggler's is a brewpub like Carver's and does not distribute its beers. However, you can take a half-gallon growler home for $9.50 (refills are only $6.50).

The concert also promises a beer garden. Soggy Coaster will let you know if he finds anything interesting.

Funkadelicacheersfortelluridebeers.

On Stone Brewing

Stone Brewing Co. co-founder and CEO Greg Koch was in Durango last week to promote his beers and hang out with the Ska Brewing guys.

I like Stone. Levitation Ale (4.4 percent ABV, 45 IBUs), it seems to me, is a major accomplishment. It has huge taste for a session beer. Levitation was recognized with a gold medal at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival in the American-style red/amber ale category.

It has a resiny, piney taste that's more flavorful than most amber ales. I have never encountered a more flavorful beer with such low alcohol content. It's marvelous.

I spoke briefly with Koch(pronounced Cook) at Lady Falconburgh's (pictured), and he said Levitation is the only beer in Stone's regular lineup that has changed significantly since its introduction. The recipe has evolved. It's now hopped with Columbus, Amarillo, Simcoe and Crystal hops, and dry-hopped with Amarillos.

San Diego-based Stone is all about the West Coast hop craze. Their ales all derive from basic English styles (pale ale, IPA, porter, stout), before getting stuffed full of hops.

Stone's Pale Ale (5.4 percent ABV, 41 IBUs), is its flagship and was its first beer. I recommend it, as I do the IPA (6.9 percent, 77 IBUs) and Imperial Russian Stout (10.5 percent ABV, 90+ IBUs).

Arrogant Bastard Ale (7.2 percent ABV, IBUs not released) is an extraordinarily popular beer, but I'm not on the bandwagon. It lacks a distinctive taste. It's not bitter, sweet or funky. It's just a dark ale that leaves me without any memorable impressions.

Arrogant Bastard's marketing is also, to me, a little off-putting. Stone says: "This is an aggressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth."

The whole arrogant bastard bit is apparently not just a gimmick. Koch, as his public interviews make evident, is a beer snob of the highest order. Still, I found him to be friendly and open during our brief conversation.

In general, I resent breweries that succumb to obnoxious corporate marketing because so many do well without it. Speak softly and distribute big beer, I say.

A lot of good breweries find their way onto liquor-store shelves in Colorado. Stone has to compete with a long list of out-of-state breweries, not to mention Colorado's own brewers. Yet Stone is a solid choice, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend their lineup.

Spoetzl brewery endures

The Associated Press has a good article on the 100th anniversary of Spoetzl Brewery, maker of the Shiner beers.

Spoetzl is a Texas institution. It was founded in 1909 by German and Czech immigrants. The brewery survived Prohibition and corporate consolidation to emerge healthily into our current golden age of craft beer.

I enjoy Shiner Bock (4.4 percent ABV, 14 IBUs). No visit to Serious Texas Bar-B-Q is complete without a bottle.

Another point in Shiner's favor is that their beers are typically a buck or two cheaper per six-pack than most craft brews, without any real sacrifice in quality.

The fruits of collaboration

Ska Brewing Co. and Avery Brewing Co. will release their first mutual collaboration beer on Friday, July 24, in Durango.

The beer, Wheelsucker Wheat Ale, is probably best described as an imperial hefeweizen. It's a bit more heavily hopped than most hefes, and should settle around 7.2 percent ABV, according to Ska President Dave Thibodeau.

Ska will bottle Wheelsucker in 22-oz. bomber bottles for distribution around Durango and the Front Range, Thibodeau says.

Adam Avery, the man behind Avery Brewing, was in Durango last week to actually help brew the beer at Ska HQ.

Avery Brewing, of Boulder, has previously released several collaboration beers, including Collaboration Not Litigation, a Belgian ale brewed with Russian River Brewing of California. Avery also collaborated with Mountain Sun of Boulder to brew Van Diemen, a so-called black saison.

This is the first time I am aware of that Ska has collaborated with a brewery outside of Durango. Of course, Ska frequently collaborates with other Durango breweries as part of the Durango Bootleggers Society.

I'm more than usually excited for this release. Neither Ska nor Avery knows how to brew a bad beer, so the bar is high.

Wheelsucker's release will culminate a major bike ride the brewers are to embark upon. The Tour of Colorado will wind for 426 miles from Avery's HQ in Boulder to Ska in Durango.

Over five days, the tour will stop at microbreweries and brewpubs "in an effort to bring together Colorado craft brewers and encourage the fledgling spirit of collaboration and camaraderie that has taken hold in the craft beer industry," Avery said in a news release.

Each evening after the day’s riding is finished, breweries along the route will host fundraisers with Avery and Ska. Profits from pint sales, raffles and auctions will go to local charities. The ride will commence with a party raising money for Community Cycles, a local bike charity, at the Avery Tap Room in Boulder on Sunday, July 19.

There has been some confusion about Wheelsucker's release date, but Thibodeau says July 24th at Ska HQ. Mark your calendars.

Drink beer for the environment

"Gallons of freshwater consumed in the production of a gallon of milk and beer, respectively: 1,000, 300."

- Harper's Index

This is worth remembering in Southwest Colorado, where water is relatively scarce.

Of course, the best thing you can drink for the environment is municipal tap water. Corporations have done a great job of convincing us that tap water is somehow tainted. It's fine. Especially in Durango, where it comes from the Weminuche Wilderness.

But you can't drink only water, and craft beer is a heck of an alternative.