Pursuit of Hoppiness
Buses, buds and brews — A Colorado Springs excursion
The Colorado Springs beer scene gets overlooked when compared with Denver, but my goodness can you drink some fantastic brews.
A few weeks ago, the Steel City Brewers Club rented one of those huge passenger vans, hired a designated driver, and spent the next 10 hours on a brewery tour.
On the list were nine breweries, with an overly ambitious schedule of 40 minutes per stop to get a feel for the atmosphere and a brew.
We started at Fossil Craft Beer Company, with a small tap room tucked away into a shopping center west of downtown. Fossil has been around for three-years now, and shows no signs of slowing down. I tried the Mammoth IPA, while my wife found the stout dangerously smooth.
Our second stop was newcomer Cerberus Brewing. We stayed way past our time allotment for Cerberus to have lunch — because drinking all day on an empty stomach is good for nobody.
Unlike most of our stops throughout the day, Cerberus has a full kitchen instead of relying on food trucks. I had the lamb sliders, and I have been drooling over them since early November.
As for the beer, I had a flight full of various beer styles with the Kolsch and Elysium IPA were my favorites. The club was lucky enough to take a peak at the pots and kettles where Cerberus’ beer is made and talk with the brewer. The hospitality and welcoming of a random group of home brewers into the brewery, fielding random questions as we all gawked over the shiny equipment was far too kind.
Two hours later, we departed for Iron Bird Brewing. Iron Bird is a brewery I thought was merely a tap house and nothing more. I frequently drive past this venue, but had never stopped. I’m a fool.
Not only is there a ton of beer on tap, but they have a menu full of pizza. I can’t vouch for the pizza, but trust me, I will stop the next time I drive by.
What impressed me the most about Iron Bird is the fact they had three beers on cask. Instead of serving beer from a keg, under pressure from CO2 and stored in a walk-in freezer, cask served beer is typically served at around 55-degrees and has to be manually pumped out of the cask. There’s more to a cask brew, but that’s the gist — and the end result is full of flavor.
I had a porter out of the cask, and my wife had the Flemish Red sour. If there’s one stop we made all day I wish we would have spent more time at, it’s Iron Bird. This place had a killer atmosphere and fantastic beer.
Our next three stops were Fieldhouse Brewing, Gold Camp Brewing, and Peaks N Pines Brewing.
Every Wednesday is Test Tap Wednesday at Fieldhouse, where a random recipe of flavors that shouldn’t be in beer, but often work in beer, makes its way to the taproom. For example, Thanksgiving week was a test tap of Pecan Brown.
Gold Camp’s atmosphere was one of Jenga, Connect Four, and other bar games. Laughs were had, beers were drank, and another peek behind the brewery curtain was completed.
About half way through our stop at Gold Camp is when the night began to get fuzzy, and my recollection of what beers were good and where slowly went downhill, so bare with me.
Don’t let Nano108’s name fool you, this place is anything but small. It’s huge, and the owner/head brewer, Keith, is the nicest guy. Our group spent close to two hours in the brewery itself, looking at equipment, talking brewing techniques and methodology with Keith. He welcomed us with open arms and shared every bit of knowledge we could possibly pry from him.
His passion for creating great beer was contagious and inspiring. I had half of a pint of an IPA at Nano108 because I was so caught up in the tour and conversation.
We rounded out our night at Rocky Mountain Brewery and Colorado Common Hard Cider. Both were quality stops, and warrant another visit.
Nine breweries in 10 hours. It was insane, but an incredible amount of fun and we didn’t even come close to visiting all of the breweries in Colorado Springs.
This is the root of my envy, my jealousy, towards Colorado Springs.
The fact that residents of Colorado Springs have so many options for quality suds, in turn forcing stiff competition (whether or not you can get a single brewer to admit it), only creates an environment for better beer.
Obviously it’s not Denver but the criticism towards Spring’s beer scene just is unfair.
