On October 29^th, the Colorado State University Brewing Science and Technology class along with Professor Jack Avens joined Doug Odell in brewing this semester’s class beer. The class, part of the university’s department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, is now in its seventh year. This is the fifth year the students (all over 21) have brewed with Odell Brewing. “Three Sheets,” a Belgian Tripel, will be tapped on Thursday, November 17th. The brewery will host a celebration for the class on November 17th from 4-6pm. Guests can try the class brew and enjoy live acoustic funk music by Futaba.

In early August, I had the pleasure of joining 12 of my brewery co-workers (all from our incredible production team) on our annual “hop trip.” What began, a few years ago, as a weekend investigating the western slope of Colorado and its locally grown hops and fruit, has now become a yearly retreat where we visit our farming friends and bond with each other.

We loaded up our tents and bags (and a whole lot of beer), and headed west through the Rocky Mountains into Palisade, CO. Our first stop was Hippie Chicks Organic Hops. The farm, dubbed a “friend and family supported agriculture project” is now in its 2^nd harvest. Run by our friend Julie and her lovely hippie chick friends, the organic hop farm boasts Cascade and Chinook varieties that we will use in our Mountain Standard Double IPA. After greetings and hugs, we immediately went to check out the crops. They were a few weeks away from harvest, and already the hops looked incredible!

This place was awesome! Beautiful landscape, lush hop cones, and cute hippie chick farmers. Seriously, what’s not to love? After a quick beer, the hippie chicks took us all for a “cocktail float” down the Colorado River to cool off before dinner. We rendezvoused at the farm for some barbeque and football before heading to the Peach Street Distillery for a night cap. We ended the night under the stars, sleeping between the bines.

I’m not going to lie. The next morning was a little rough. The rooster had us up bright and early, and we had to clear out for a wedding. So we packed up and did what any brewery crew would do; headed straight to a winery. We checked out a few more wineries and vineyards before making our way to Big B’s / Delicious Orchards in Paonia, CO.

Big B’s boasts a beautiful orchard, storefront, restaurant and camping. Last year, they provided the peaches we used in our Avant Peche, and we used their cherries in our Friek. We took a load off and enjoyed some live music and their local Cider.

While in Paonia, we also visited Rising Sun Hop Farms. The farm has about five acres of hops including Cascade, Chinook, and Nugget hops. Wandering around a hot hop farm had us all thirsty, so it was time for a beer. We decided to check out Revolution Brewing in downtown Paonia. The small brewery, located in an old house, was a real treat. We especially enjoyed their Pale Ale!

After a quick bite (and some Space Station debate), we returned to Big B’s for a campfire, some witty banter, and another night under the stars.

As a company committed to supporting our community, we work to source raw materials from local suppliers like Hippie Chick Hop Farms and Big B’s/Delicious Orchards, both independently owned Colorado businesses like us. The trip provided us a great opportunity to inspect our hops and fruit, and also allowed us to enjoy the great outdoors of Colorado and spend some quality leisure time with our co-workers outside of the brewery.

The Great South Beer Cup, Buenos Aires, May 10-15, 2011

A few months ago, I was invited by Martin Boan, owner of a malting facility and also a company which conducts classes for aspiring brewers, to judge and speak at the inaugural South Beer Cup, the first South America wide craft beer conference and competition. There were 3 other North Americans participating. They were Jay Brooks, a beer writer, Pete Slosberg, founder of Pete’s Wicked Ale, and Stephen Beaumont, a beer writer from Canada.

On Tuesday night, there was a beer, food, and chocolate tasting for about 50 people at a bar with a good selection of Argentinean craft beer. On Wednesday and Thursday, about 20 judges judged about 300 beers from 80 breweries in 20 categories. The beers were from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Columbia. All in all, the quality was some good, and some not so good. Frequent problems were phenols, bacteria, lack of hop flavor and aroma in hoppy styles, and astringency. Surprisingly, oxidation was quite rare.

On Wednesday and Thursday evenings, there were receptions at brewpubs for brewers, judges, and other hangers on. The conference was on Friday and Saturday. There were about 200 attendees. I only went to the opening remarks and a presentation of the history and status of craft brewing in Argentina because the whole day was in Spanish. The first craft brewery in Argentina opened in 1991, and now there are 82 in a country of 39 million people. Combined, they produce about 50,000 barrels per year, or 0.26% of total beer sales. In many ways, they are about 15-20 years behind the US craft beer industry.

Friday night there was a reception at an old beer hall built by Quilmes (a large light lager brewer) in the 1920s. The place is no longer a beer hall and has been bought by the city of Buenos Aires to be made into a brewing museum. It is a very ornate structure, both inside and out and was perfect for a number of Argentinean breweries to serve their beers. It was open to the public and had about 400 people in attendance.

On Saturday morning, Pete spoke about how he and his partner started Pete’s. They were always a marketing company first and that is how they went about planning their business. Jay spoke of the importance of marketing and specific things craft brewers should do to promote their beer and themselves. Stephen spoke about craft brewing industries in about 8 up and coming craft beer markets around the world. I gave a modified version of our sustainability presentation and tried to stress that any level of attempt of sustainability is better than none. A lot of these breweries are short on capital and trying to make their breweries work. In our beginning, we didn’t think much about our environmental impact because we were concentrating on establishing our business and being profitable. A surprising number of people came up to me afterward to ask questions or to tell me some of the things they are doing, and would like to do in the future.

I also gave a short bit about the past, present, and possible future of US craft brewing All 4 of us emphasized that way more can be accomplished if craft brewers work together to promote the industry, rather than going at it alone.

Saturday night was the awards ceremony. It was open to the public and featured many beers to taste, and great food. There were probably 300 people there. I took down a case of Friek, a case of Myrcenary, and 4 bottles of Avant Peche. People loved them, especially the Myrcenary. The ceremony itself was great. Not only were brewers really excited to win awards, they were truly excited for each other as well.

Throughout the week, brewers came up to me and told me how important it was to have the 4 of us from North America there. They thought our presence helped to legitimize South American craft brewing, and that we brought knowledge and experience they really need and appreciate. It really is a good feeling to help passionate and dedicated beer lovers establish themselves and their craft brewing industry in South America.

Sunday was a free day and a number of us went to an asado for a late lunch. An asado is a restaurant specializing in grilled and roasted meat. I have never been to a place like it. It probable seated about 600 people with 100 or so people waiting at any given time. They had 2 fire pits, 3 very large grills, and one wood fired oven. If you like grilled and roasted beef ribs, filet mignon, pork, tripe, lamb, goat, chicken, sausages, or rabbit, this is the place for you.

On Monday May 16th I flew to Montevideo Uruguay because it was the same price to stop there for a day as it was to continue to Sao Paulo Brazil where I did more beer related things. I just wanted to see the city but while at the conference I met a Uruguayan brewer who invited me to visit his brewery. As it turns out, it was only 4 blocks from my hotel. Cerveceria Davok is a very small, shoestring budget brewery. All the people have other jobs, and brew only 5, 2 barrel batches every Friday. The equipment is even more basic than a good homebrew set up, but their beers were surprisingly good. They won 3 medals at the South Beer Cup.

All in all, this was a wonderful event. It was great to get to know some South American craft brewers and learn they are as passionate about brewing as any craft brewer out there. It was fun to taste their beer, and see the sights of Buenos Aires.

You can learn more about the Great South Beer cup at www.southbeercup.com.

Until next time,
Doug

Many of you have been enjoying our latest single serve offering Friek and we wanted to provide you with a little more history behind this special project that began over 3 years ago.

Doug Odell has always been committed to supporting homebrewers and has participated in the GABF Pro-Am competition since its inception in 2006. Working with the local Fort Collins homebrew club, The Liquid Poets, Doug worked with local homebrewer Eric Menchen who won the Best of Show in their clubs 2006 competition with his Kriek. Given the time constraints on producing this Kriek Ale for the GABF deadline, Doug and Eric instead brewed a batch of Eric’s Kriek here at the brewery with Colorado grown tart and sweet cherries so it had proper time to age and develop.

Still new to Sour Beers and without the proper facilities to house this beer at the brewery, the brew was relocated to Niwot where Eric kept a watchful eye on the fermentation over the following year. The beer was then brought back up to the brewery where it aged in an isolated part of the brewery in oak barrels for the next 5 months. After the aging time much of Eric’s Kriek was kegged for the taproom and Eric, with a small amount remaining in barrels to continue souring.

Inspired by the process of brewing Eric’s Kriek, Doug and Director of Productions Brendan McGivney, brewed their interpretation of a Kriek style Sour Ale in the summer of 2008. For this beer they brought together the knowledge of Brendan’s recent trip to Belgian and Doug’s inspiration from his project with Eric in writing their recipe for their Kriek. They began playing around with different cherry sources and varieties, and for the first time used Brettanomycees in the process. A small amount of Doug and Eric’s Kriek was added to inoculate the new barrels with the resident bacteria.

Later that year during the Raspberry harvest Doug and Brendan added freshly picked Fort Collins Raspberries, thereby creating the concept for Friek as it came to be. During this time Doug and Eric’s beer was souring nicely and Doug decided it was time to blend some of his recent batch he brewed with Brendan with the remaining beer from Doug and Eric’s brew. This beer was kegged for our tasting room and for the Vail Big Beers Belgians and Barleywines festival.

This process of brewing small batches of Doug and Brendan’s Kriek on the pilot brewhouse continued and as more oak barrels began to fill with this delicious sour ale, it was decided that we would attempt to do a full scale production batch for public release. Like Brendan and Doug’s first collaboration on this project, fresh handpicked raspberries were added at the end of aging to give it the complex fruit characteristic that plays so well with the unique combination of House Ale yeast, Brettanomycees and bacteria that Doug and Brendan chose to use.

We hope you are enjoying this unique hand crafted ale as much as we are and we are looking forward to continuing this project in the future. The next batch of Friek has been aging in oak and souring for quite some time now, so if you missed out the first time around don’t worry it will be back…we just need to be patient and wait for the yeast, wild yeast and bacteria to do their thing!

Cheers!