Big, bigger, biggest. It’s all about “funkification.” The ninth annual Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywine Festival, running Thursday through Saturday in Vail, promises three days of offbeat brews.
The festival at the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort, featuring seminars, beer-and-food dinners and more than 175 beers, winds up with a public tasting from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday.
The beers are “big,” brimming with flavor and containing at least 7 percent alcohol (by volume).
Twenty Colorado brewers and beer makers from around the U.S. and the world take part. Among the rare Belgian specialties to be poured are DeRanke Guldenberg, Gouden Carolus and St. Bernardus. U.S. beers range from Dogfish Head Brewery on the East Coast to Stone Brewery on the West Coast.
The point is to expose the public to on-the-edge brews, experimental concoctions and high-powered beers not easily found in local liquor stores. “It’s American craft beers side by side with international creations, the only place I’m aware of that this happens. Really cool, funky stuff,” said Laura Lodge of High Point Brewing, who has coordinated all nine of the festivals created by her beer-distributor brother, Bill, and Jason Coleman, founder of Hubcap Brewery. They conceived of the idea to educate consumers on the vast numbers and styles of beers available.
The festival is a switch from the usual 1-ounce-in-a-juice- glass pourings. The beers are served in souvenir brandy snifters, and tables are covered with white cloth. It’s also an intimate setting with about 750 tasters expected to show up.
“It’s an awesome way to experiment without buying that $12 bottle of beer,” Laura Lodge said. “There are so many cutting-edge, world- class brewers. It’s a chance to talk to them. And there are a lot of food pairings with beers.”
Among the well-known craft-beer brewers expected are Vinnie Cilurzo, owner/brewmaster of Russian River Brewing in California, and Matt Brophy, manager of brewing operations for Flying Dog Brewery of Maryland. Adam Avery, founder/brewmaster of Boulder’s Avery Brewing, and Sam Calagione, founder/president of Dogfish Head Brewing in Delaware, host a dinner pairing food and beers on Thursday night. There’s also a homebrew competition.
Lodge recommends that because on-site parking is extremely limited, attendees leave their cars at their hotels and take the shuttle to the festival. A complete schedule of events and other information are available at bigbeersfest .
The festival benefits the Vail Valley Charitable Fund.
Name that tool
For $1 million, what is a “brolly”? Answer: It’s a triangular-shaped tool that fits on the rim of a pint glass to produce a perfect pour of that old British beer favorite, a Black and Tan.
The usual method of creating the dark-over-light twofer is to fill a pint glass half full of a pale ale (usually Bass or Harp), then gently pour Guinness stout over the back of a bar spoon to prevent the two beers from mixing.
It doesn’t always work, so Bass has come up with the Bass Brolly, which lets the Guinness drip through gently, keeping the two beers layered. The Bass Brolly is available for $8 at .
Beer notes
Grand Teton Brewing, Wyoming’s first microbrewery when it was founded in 1988, is proud of its Bitch Creek ESB, voted the grand champion in the Bitter/ESB category of the U.S. Beer Tasting Championships. The big ale, says the brewer, now located in Victor, Idaho, is “not for the timid.” Grand Teton is just out with a double ESB version of Bitch Creek as part of its 20th anniversary reserve beers in 750ml bottles. . . . Thanks to alert reader/beer aficionado Ryan Kalkwarf, who points out that despite what I wrote in last month’s column, Winter Warlock from Bristol Brewing in Colorado Springs, is available in six-packs as well as on tap. . . . Quotable: “The most dynamic beer culture in the world is here. There is more going on with brewing in America than anywhere else.” — Larry Bell, founder, Kalamazoo (Mich.) Brewing.
Dick Kreck’s e-mail: rakreck@yahoo.com. Send mail to him c/o The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 600, Denver, CO 80202.
