Probably the most common question we get from folks outside of Colorado is "Where can I get my favorite Colorado craft brew near me?" Well there are a lot of apps and review sites out there, but nothing beats the data coming directly from the breweries themselves. A few, like New Belgium also have an app where you can find packaged goods as well as find your favorite selection on tap wherever you are.
Here are a few finders:
Avery Brewing:
http://averybrewing.com/find-avery-beer/
Boulder Beer:
http://www.boulderbeer.com/find-us/find-our-beers
Breckenridge Brewing:
http://www.breckbrew.com/beer-locator
Great Divide Brewing:
http://greatdivide.com/beers/beer-finder/
Left Hand Brewing:
http://lefthandbrewing.com/beer-finder/
New Belgium Brewing:
http://lefthandbrewing.com/beer-finder/
Odell Brewing:
http://odellbrewing.com/beer-finder/
Oskar Blues Brewery:
http://brew.oskarblues.com/beer-finder-2/
Clearly, this isn't a full list, but our first shot, starting with some of the bigger guys. For more info, check out your favorite brewery's website for newest data. You will find that many don't (or can't) get into California, as well as Utah, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, due to local laws. Darn them!
Another site, Seek A Brew, compiles distribution data on thousands of US craft brewers. We don't know how often this is updated, or how accurate this is, but we hope it helps!
Monday, January 26, 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015
CraftBeer.com debuts online beer and food pairing workbook
The Big Beer Festival in Vail saw the debut of CrafBeer.com's online course intended to help beer retailers, restaurants, chef schools and beer and food aficionados to develop a foundation and vocabulary for talking about beer and food pairings. The standing room only seminar, titled "Palate Trips and an Insider Tasting" featured Brewers Association Craft Beer Program Director Julia Herz, along with the BA's very own Culinary Consultant, Chef Adam Dulye, introducing their 60 page workbook and online course on foundational elements of beer and food pairing. Dulye, who is co-owner and chef of the Monk's Kettle and The Abbot's Cellar in San Francisco, led the beer and food pairing with demonstrations how different styles react and compliment fatty foods, in this case a rustic pate with pickled green bean and carrot.
Seminars like this are, for food and beer fans, among the best parts of the Big Beers Fest. The settings are intimate, you get to ask questions of the expert presenters and the beers poured are outstanding. For those who have ever been to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, it's very similar, only with beer (and the price tag is a fraction of the $700-plus Aspen ticket).
Seminars like this are, for food and beer fans, among the best parts of the Big Beers Fest. The settings are intimate, you get to ask questions of the expert presenters and the beers poured are outstanding. For those who have ever been to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, it's very similar, only with beer (and the price tag is a fraction of the $700-plus Aspen ticket).
Big Beer Fest rocks Vail
The Colorado Beer Trail is in Vail for the 15th Annual Big Beer, Belgians and Barleywines Festival -- dubbed appropriately the Food and Wine Festival of beer -- and it does not disappoint. The tasting begins at 2:30 p.m. today, but Friday was packed with all sorts of seminars that included guided tastings of sour beers, a how-to on culturing yeast from your favorite beer so you can brew it yourself and an extensive workshop put on by Ray Daniels, Founder and Director of the Cicerone Program.
About 60 folks from National Beer Judges to plain beer aficionados judged the Big Beers homebrew competition and the winners of that will be announced later today. I judged Belgian beers and while there were more misses than hits in terms of style and technical quality, one of the dozen beers I sampled did stand out and was sent on to the semifinal round.
This festival is unique for several reasons. Festival Director and Founder Laura Lodge says that she intends to keep it relatively small and, to the extent that 1,600 attendees are able to be, intimate. Unlike other, larger beer festivals, you're going to see the owners and brewers behind the tables talking about the beers they're serving.
And most of the beers are unique and/or vintage offerings and not what you ever find at other festivals, let along at the tap rooms of the brewers. Dry Dock Brewing from Aurora has four, yes FOUR, whiskey barrel-aged beers that clock in at 8-9.3 percent ABV (alcohol by volume). The Double Hazelnut Brown, Double Brown, Double Coffee Porter and the Double Vanilla Porter. Front Range Brewing from Lafayette has a monster Silverheels Barleywine that's just over 12 percent ABV. Avery brought 11 of their notoriously sumo-sized beers, including Samael's, Rumpkin, Pump(KY)n and Tweak, a bourbon barrel-aged stout with coffee. And the list goes on.
Yes, Colorado is heavily represented here, but there are also some big names from across the pond, including two dozen breweries from Belgium and a handful from England, Germany and Switzerland. According to Lodge, it doesn't hurt that the festival is in Vail. It's a great excuse for skiers to combine work with play.
We'll be posting more from the Big Beer Fest, which is based in the posh Vail Cascade Resort and Spa. The festival is also a fundraiser for the Vail Valley Charitable Fund, which raises money for Eagle County residents and workers who have run into financial problems due to medical issues. So this event does a great service in helping out the locals.
About 60 folks from National Beer Judges to plain beer aficionados judged the Big Beers homebrew competition and the winners of that will be announced later today. I judged Belgian beers and while there were more misses than hits in terms of style and technical quality, one of the dozen beers I sampled did stand out and was sent on to the semifinal round.
This festival is unique for several reasons. Festival Director and Founder Laura Lodge says that she intends to keep it relatively small and, to the extent that 1,600 attendees are able to be, intimate. Unlike other, larger beer festivals, you're going to see the owners and brewers behind the tables talking about the beers they're serving.
And most of the beers are unique and/or vintage offerings and not what you ever find at other festivals, let along at the tap rooms of the brewers. Dry Dock Brewing from Aurora has four, yes FOUR, whiskey barrel-aged beers that clock in at 8-9.3 percent ABV (alcohol by volume). The Double Hazelnut Brown, Double Brown, Double Coffee Porter and the Double Vanilla Porter. Front Range Brewing from Lafayette has a monster Silverheels Barleywine that's just over 12 percent ABV. Avery brought 11 of their notoriously sumo-sized beers, including Samael's, Rumpkin, Pump(KY)n and Tweak, a bourbon barrel-aged stout with coffee. And the list goes on.
Yes, Colorado is heavily represented here, but there are also some big names from across the pond, including two dozen breweries from Belgium and a handful from England, Germany and Switzerland. According to Lodge, it doesn't hurt that the festival is in Vail. It's a great excuse for skiers to combine work with play.
We'll be posting more from the Big Beer Fest, which is based in the posh Vail Cascade Resort and Spa. The festival is also a fundraiser for the Vail Valley Charitable Fund, which raises money for Eagle County residents and workers who have run into financial problems due to medical issues. So this event does a great service in helping out the locals.
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