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Tour de brew: Collaboration Fest 2020 Colorado craft scratches the seven-year itch by Michael J. Casey

COLORADO BREWERS GUILD

2020 marks the Colorado Brewers Guild’s (CBG) seventh annual Collaboration Festival — another chance for Centennial State craft breweries to join forces and create one-of-a-kind beers. More than 115 beers, from 175-plus participating breweries, have been announced.

As usual, CollabFest 2020 will be held in Denver, this year at the Fillmore Auditorium (a first for the fest). And, like previous years, CollabFest (April 4) will kick off Colorado Craft Beer Week (April 5-11).

Capital, you’re saying to yourself, but what kind of beer will I be able to drink at said CollabFest? Well, how about...

...a Pale Ale brewed by the Colorado Brewers Guild staff?

2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the CBG, and to celebrate they brewed a pale ale at Joyride Brewing with help from Station 26 Brewing Co., Horse & Dragon Brewing Company, 4 Noses Brewing Company, Epic Brewing Company, Periodic Brewery, Odell Brewing Company, Broken Compass Brewing and Barrels & Bottles Brewery. It’s this year’s welcome beer, and the CBG will be handing it out for all who attend.

...a Coffee Scotch Ale brewed by members of the media?

Like last year, and the year before, beer writers of the Centennial State gathered at a chosen brewery to brew a beer for attendees to enjoy. This year, Odyssey Beerwerks played host and whipped up an 11-barrel batch of Scotch Ale brewed with floor malted Marris Otter, Vienna, roasted barley, East Kent Golding hops and aged on freshly roasted coffee beans from Hunter Bay Coffee Roasters. Enjoy.

...a Hazy Double IPA from two titans of craft beer? Recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, Odell Brewing Company continues to put out some of the best beer in the market. Currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is the gold standard by which all others are measured. You’d be foolish to pass up any beer one or the other puts out, but together — and with a shared passion for hops — this might be the best beer at the fest.

...a Purple Imperial Coffee Cream Ale brewed by four Latino-owned breweries?

Last year Raices Brewing Company, Dos Luces Brewery, Coal Mine Avenue Brewing Company and Jade Mountain Brewing Company banded together to create Suave Fest (the first Latino craft beer festival in the country) and conceived this brew. Surprise is the name of the game here: purple in color, cream in character, dark in flavor.

...a Pale Ale from two of Colorado’s premier purveyors of pale?

Founded in 2013, Cannonball Creek Brewing Company has won at least one Great American Beer Festival medal every year since. A feat Bootstrap Brewing’s Steve Kaczeus is quick to point out with admiration. And from friendly competition comes collaboration: Hop Shillelagh Pale Ale (they briefly considered using the portmanteau, Ballstrap, but thought better). Regardless, a pale by any other name from these two will still be a hoppy treat.

Tickets to the seventh annual Collaboration Festival (3 p.m., April 4) are currently on sale at collabfest.beer.

Drink of the Week: Finkel & Garf Brewing Co.’s Dry Hopped Lulo Sour

Breweries aren’t the only ones who get in on the collaboration game. Restaurants do too, and in Denver’s Washington Park district, Uncle has been serving up steaming hot bowls of slurpable ramen noodles in deep, rich umami-laden broth for years. And when done right, ramen is a symphony of flavor requiring little improvement beyond a standard lager or a glass of iced tea.

Therein lies the challenge for Boulder’s Finkel & Garf: Produce a beer to harmonize with Uncle’s ramen bowls while standing tall on its own.

The answer: a kettle-soured, dry-hopped sour wheat ale brewed with Pilsen malt, wheat, lulo fruit and Lemondrop hops. At 5% alcohol by volume, their dry-hopped Lulo Sour pours mango-yellow with a loose pile of foam. The nose is a bouquet of fresh tropical citrus, even a touch of green tea. The mouth follows suit: creamy with a slight sour snap to wake up the lips and gums. Citrus cleans everything up, brightening the palate up for the next bite.

You can drink it solo, on a nice warm patio, but, as with most collaborations: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.