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Tasting Room

Denver Breweries – Mockery and Prost

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Mockery Brewing

Mockery was my third brewery of the day and also my least favorite from that day. Though they did have a few solid beers out of the bunch. The brewery was pretty empty because it was July 4th and the brewery was nice and cool.

I started with the dandelion farmhouse. It was dark and malty with notes of cherry and an herbal bitterness. It didn’t work for me at all and didn’t taste like a farmhouse beer to me. Hops in Stereo IPA was decent with hops mostly on the herbal flavor and a boozy finish. The Rock on Forever IPA was hazy mostly because it was a new keg. The beer was creamy and tropical with a light bitterness. It was a solid IPA and the best of the bunch.

Sour Grapes was quite disappointing. The beer was strong and boozy with mild grape character and light caramel. It was nothing like a typical american wild ale. The barrel aged stout was quite good with tons of dark chocolate and a great balance for 10%, largely hiding the alcohol. Mockery had a solid lineup though I would not recommend you visit if you are hunting for sours.

Top 2:
Rock on Forever IPA
BBA Stout

Prost Brewing

Prost is a full on German style brewery. They have a wide open inside seating area as well as outdoor seating. They had a food truck on site when we visited, with great food. I only ordered full pours of two beers because after all the tasters I wanted to have a proper half liter of good beer. Before ordering the Keller Pilsner and Heffeweizen I had a small splash to confirm they were what I wanted and both were great.

The Keller pilsner was delicious and lightly bitter with doughy and earthy notes and mild hops on a clean finish. It had all the complexity I expect from the style and is more my style than the lagers at Bierstadt Lagerhaus. The Heffeweizen was perfectly balanced with notes of banana and clove but not overpowering the beer. It had a good dry finish. If I lived in the area I would drink their heffeweizen on the regular.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Denver Breweries – Baere and Cerebral

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Baere Brewing

Baere was one of the most recommended breweries that I visited in my trip. Some said it was a must visit spot. I thought the beers were good but they didn’t particularly blow me away. They had a nice tasting room in a strip mall with good air conditioning inside and plenty of outdoor seating, though it was too hot to sit outside when I visited. I started with their saison, which was good. The beer was dry and spice forward with cracker notes and a lingering bitterness. It was a bit bitter for the style but solid. I prefer a different style of saison but it was nicely done. The Belgian Single was solid with notes of light orange and light funk. The beer was subtle and lightly bitter on the finish. The Grisette was my favorite of the bunch. It had bright notes of lemon and grapefruit with mild funk from the brett yeast finishing with light oak. This is one of the more impressive brett beers I have had in a while. The porter was good and roasty with mild bitterness and somewhat syrupy. It is fairly standard for the style. The kolsch was light and creamy with notes of grape and corn. It was average for the style. The pale ale was super dry with nice mix of resin and tropical fruit. A solid pale but it could have used more explosive hop aroma. Baere was overall solid though the only thing that stood out to me was the grisette. It is a good brewery but not something I would go out of my way to return to. Top 2: Grisette Belgian Single

Cerebral Brewing

Cerebral had mostly hazy IPAs and I tried quite a few. They have a good sized tasting room and a solid line up of hazy beers including a few available in cans. For hazy beers they were fairly average though still good. The sours with lactose were much more impressive. I tried a flight of six beers of which most were IPAs with a few sours. I started with the mango coconut lime berliner weisse with lactose. It was easily my favorite of the bunch. The beer initially tasted to me like peach pie with light tart and notes of cinnamon. The lactose gave it a creamy body without getting overly sweet. Their flanders red style sour was solid with notes of caramel and red wine vinegar and a strong tart finish. It wasn’t the best but a solid example of the style. The Tangerine Stuff IPA was bursting with citrus and the fruit balanced wonderfully with the base hops. The beer had nice prominent notes of mango to combine with the tangerine. The last 3 were all hazy IPAs. DDH Strange claw was creamy with tons of hop acidity and a nice burst of tropical flavor. Rare Trait was super flavorful and exploded with notes of tropical fruit and papaya. The Controlled Chaos was the most creamy of the bunch with tons of pineapple flavor. The three hazy beers were all solid, fairly average as far as hazy IPAs go. They are a solid stop if you don’t want to hunt for Weldwerks hazy IPAs. Top 2: Bird of Paradise – Berliner with lactose and fruit Controlled Chaos – Hazy IPA

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Denver Breweries – Crooked Stave, TRVE, and Strange

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I recently made a short weekend trip to Denver and during that time I visited some breweries I missed out on the last time. I heard a lot of great things about Crooked Stave and to a lesser extent TRVE, and visited Strange because someone I was visiting recommended them.

Crooked Stave

Crooked Stave has been brewing farmhouse ales and sours as their main focus for a while. Sometime more recently, they started experimenting with IPAs and have come up with some fantastic cloudy/juicy IPAs. While the taster price for their sours initially seems ridiculous (some are $4 or $5 for a 5oz taster) keep in mind that those same beers are $14 for a 375ml bottle, so the price on tap is not much worse per ounce than a bottle.

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Crooked Stave is located in the back of a small shopping complex that was converted from an old abandoned brick building. When you first pull into the dirt parking lot in front, which is almost always full, you may question whether you should be there at all. It looks quite sketchy. Once inside, you will see a number of small shops and restaurants and Crooked Stave’s tasting room is at the far back area. They don’t have an outward sign telling you where to go either, but once you are inside you will feel right at home in their tasting room setting. Tasters range from $2 to $5 depending on the style and I broke up my tasting into two sets of 3 and came home with a few bottles as well.

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I started with the Damn IPA which was cloudy and nicely carbonated with tons of citrus and ginger notes. The Sourless IPA was also quite tasty with lots of citrus and some mild herbal note and a bitter finish. Both were solid examples of the juicy IPA style. I got a taster of the porter for my husband before he went off to do other things but he didn’t care for it. I found it to be very delicious with lots of cherry notes that balance with bitter chocolate and some herbal hop notes. The beer was quite smooth and medium body.

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For sours I started with Origins, a Flanders Red style of sorts. It had a strong tart kick with some mild jam notes and hints of caramel and mild balsamic vinegar. I went next to the two L’bretta beers one with raspberry and one with blueberry. I found the raspberry the clear winner with tons of jam character, strong fruit notes, and a nice tart acidic finish. The blueberry was a bit more subtle and less acidic. Flavors are so subtle that if you drink it right after the raspberry you might miss parts of it.

Known for:
Fantastic sours and now great juicy IPAs.

TRVE

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TRVE is a younger entry on the scene and has a heavy metal theme at their brewery with leanings towards satanic imagery. Thankfully the music isn’t blasting as loud as a typical metal head might prefer so you can still order beers and have a conversation without going deaf. I had a total of four tasters because while they were good I wasn’t craving more and my friends wanted something a bit more hoppy.

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The first beer I had was a hoppy saison called Caeruleus. It was nice and fruity with a good mix of spice and some mild hop kick. The aged saison was lightly tart with lots of lemon notes and a crisp finish. The IPA was smooth and balanced, mostly herbal hops, fairly average. The gose was a darker version of the style which added a nice caramel note to the typical lightly tart and lightly salty gose. I brought home a bottle of a currant sour from them so hopefully that is more impressive. While I enjoyed the beers I had, I don’t feel an urge to return to the brewery based on the beers available on tap.

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Known For:
Visit for Belgian style beers and a collection that plays with different styles.

Strange Brewing

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Based on a recommendation from my friend we stopped for a flight at Strange Brewing, which consisted of six beers mostly stouts and IPAs. Stout was very true to style 5% stout. The cherry bomb stout added a little kick with cherry and peppers but nothing outstanding. The different IPAs were all fairly average with the exception of the grapefruit IPA which had a lot of great citrus character even though it didn’t taste like it had any added zest or juice.

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Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Samael’s Oak Aged Ale, Avery Brewing

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I couldn’t resist a beer that was 15% and aged in oak barrels. Lately I have been drawn in by the strong beer craze and this was the strongest beer I had ever seen. [Yes I know there are some much stronger beers out there.] My first thought on tasting this was whoa that is sweet. Probably the sweetest beer I’ve ever tasted and yet not too syrupy sweet. I expect some of my friends might find it too sweet but most of them would love it. Caramel flavors are at the forefront and amazing. I would describe this as liquid creme brulee. I would drink this over the best creme brulee I’ve ever tasted though. Much of the caramel flavor comes from the malts.

Samael's Oak Aged Ale, Avery Brewing Company.
Samael’s Oak Aged Ale, Avery Brewing Company.

On the back end there is some clear bourbon flavor that comes from the barrels it was aged in. This specific beer was from the 2012 batch so it has only been aging for a year. Some people reported the older batches to be a little too much in a lot of ways. I’m not sure if Avery has multiple batches available or if they just saved them that long. I don’t have that kind of self control when it comes to beer this good.

At a massive 15%, you are going to want to share this bottle with a friend or two. I decided to enjoy this particular bottle in some snifter glasses because my tulips were already dirty. Keep in mind that it costs $7.99 for a 12oz bottle at the place where I bought it. Normally that might sound like a lot but considering how strong this is and how unique it was completely worth it. Though I think Avery did an awesome job with some of the other beers in the series (I tried the Mephistopheles Stout last year) they didn’t blow me away like this one. It is rare that I get to taste a beer that is so unique in the flavors and yet this one did it.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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