Review by Ed Quillen
Local brews – November 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Discovering Colorado’s Brewpubs – Your Comprehensive Guide to Finding and Enjoying the Brewpubs of the Rocky Mountain State
by Tony Todd and Craig Jones
Published in 1997 by Peak Publishing Co.
ISBN 0-9657656-0-1
About a dozen years ago, Ron Slaughter (now copy editor at The Mountain Mail in Salida) ran a little homebrew-supply store off his front porch, and one annual project — I often assisted with it — was a beer-tasting during FIBArk weekend.
One year might offer a sampling of the “beers of England,” and the next, some brews from Bavaria. We joked that the simplest festival would be “Beers of Colorado,” because there were only a handful — Coors and Coors Light, and several ales and stouts from the Boulder Brewery.
Many of us, eager to enjoy the vast variety of beer, from pale pilsners to heavy cream stouts, resorted to brewing our own — a practice that became legal in 1979, although widely enjoyed before then: why else would so many grocers have carried hop-flavored malt extract?
Things have certainly improved. No longer need I brew my own to get fresh, tasty beer. Nowadays, just sampling the half-dozen “the Beers of Salida” could get you rather sloshed.
This guide to Colorado’s Brewpubs lists 59 places where you can get a bite to eat along with beer brewed on the premises — usually in several varieties. A “Beers of Colorado” festival these days might offer several hundred ales, stouts, bitters, porters, etc.
This brewpub explosion is the result of changes in state law about ten years ago — brewers used to be forbidden to sell their wares on their premises — and of a heightened awareness of the qualities of beer.
By and large, this is good, although some yupscale snobbery has entered the formerly blue-collar world of beer. This has produced a backlash — the “regular guy” proudly extolling the virtues of canned and nearly tasteless light stuff from some remote lager factory.
Beer, one of the oldest results of food processing, has a copious vocabulary, starting with components like six-row vs. two-row barley, boiling and flavoring hops, ale yeast or lager yeast. Then there’s the equipment like mash tuns and fermenters, and the result, which might have a big hop nose and a rich mouthfeel.
Brewpubs of Colorado offers a glossary for help in that respect, but most of the book is devoted to descriptions of brewpubs, with the authors describing the operation, their visit, the food, local attractions, the general ambiance, and, of course, the beer, and whether it is available outside the brewery.
It is organized alphabetically by brewpub name, with a geographic index in the back. In the main section, each brewpub gets three or four pages.
Central Colorado has only one brewpub, Il Vicino in Salida (I’ve heard of others proposed for Leadville, Buena Vista, and Westcliffe, but none has come to fruition).
It was the first brewpub they visited for their research, and gets a favorable overall review — good food at fair prices, and my favorite, Wet Mountain India Pale Ale, “has a deep amber color and is flavored with sweet crystal malt and lots of hops. This pale ale most recently won silver at the 1997 world beer championships.”
In general, the book seems sufficiently informative for those seeking local brew when touring the state. Its descriptions conform to my memories of brewpubs I’ve visited, so it seems accurate enough, although the writing is sometimes amateurish.
I wish it had offered more information, though, such as an index by beer type, so that someone seeking a bock or wheat might know where to look.
Also missing is a brief explanation of the brewing process, which would be useful for those who haven’t homebrewed and can’t be expected to know a mash tun from a firkin.
And there are a couple dozen small breweries in Colorado which don’t operate brewpubs, but offer their wares in bottles and kegs. Trout Creek Brewing in Fairplay is like that, and all it gets is a listing in back — I would have liked a description of these brews, and where one might find them.
So this isn’t anything like a complete guide to Colorado beer. It’s just what the title says, a way of discovering Colorado’s brewpubs.
Some have termed microbreweries and brewpubs a mere fad that will fade, like Pet Rocks. Certainly some will not endure, since they’re generally small businesses, and all small enterprises face a tenuous existence, especially in their early years.
But I think the phenomenon is more than a fad. It is instead a return to American tradition; a century ago, every town of much size boasted one or more breweries, and as this book demonstrates, we’re regaining something our great-grandparents enjoyed. They could ride the train from town to town though; we’re stuck with cars, so be careful in your travels if you’re following this guidebook.
–Ed Quillen
