The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [73]
“I don’t think we realized how successful we were going to be at the time,” says Simmons, who is the owner and head brewer. “We started off really as a beer bar with very limited food, and as we’ve bootstrapped our way through this it’s evolved into a full-service, made-from-scratch menu, and that’s really helped tremendously as our business has grown.” “Evolved” is putting in mildly: in just five years, Pagosa Brewing Company has garnered an incredible twenty-four medals at the GABF and other competitions, a testament to Simmons’ in-depth training at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and Munich.
The HQ is a rustic affair. “Our building was actually a garage,” he recalls. “It stored a couple of cars and it had a wood shop, but it really had no significant power, and there was no water or plumbing. That was a big investment to get it ready for a brewery.” Today it maintains a down-to-earth feel, with a lazy, expansive beer garden (10,000 square feet, with some fifty tables, heat lamps, and fire pits) and a folksy kitchen-in-a-trailer set up. The trailer kitchen is cranking out interesting, well-made food, from wild-caught Alaskan salmon and local grass-fed Angus beef burgers to pizzas and even soups spiced with hops.
PHILOSOPHY
“We’re really proud of the fact that we don’t filter any of our beers. It’s all natural and I think it shows.” Simmons is an energetic presence in the Colorado beer scene and eager experimenter; to date he’s released some forty different brews. A contest sponsored by the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary (a consortium of academic historians and museum curators) in 2006 inspired him to brew a batch of “Poor Richard’s Ale,” a coppery, low-hopped, Colonial American brown ale utilizing corn and molasses which was meant to approximate what Franklin would have enjoyed in the pubs of the day. A prestigious panel of brewing industry judges (including descendants of Franklin himself, “The First American”) picked Simmons’s recipe, which was served at the gala event in Philadelphia and was later brewed by more than a hundred commercial brewing companies in thirty-five states and some three thousand home brewers around the country.
KEY BEER
Every visitor should try the Poor Richard’s and Kayaker Cream Ale, the brewery’s top selling and most sessionable beer. It’s a crisp, light-bodied Helles lager tailor-made for hot summer afternoons. When the sun drops and the air cools off, try one of Simmons’s heavier-bodied brews, such as the Coconut Porter. “That was a real honor,” says Simmons. “Other breweries have tried to [brew the style], but we’ve been really fortunate in being able to dial it in. People go crazy for it.”
BIG BEERS,
BELGIANS &
BARLEY WINES
Vail Cascade Resort & Spa • 1300 Westhaven Dr.
Vail, CO 81657 • High Point Brewing (organizer)
(970) 524-1092 • bigbeersfestival.com • Established: 2000
SCENE & STORY
Every great day of skiing is best capped off with a good beer. So why not a hundred? For the last eleven years, a brother-and-sister team of beer lovers have put on this weekend of tasting, beer dinners, a home brew competition, informational brewmaster seminars, and, for those who can peel away from the action inside, skiing the world-class terrain of Vail. The eleventh annual Big Beers, Belgians & Barley Wines festival, held in 2011, featured a hundred top brewing companies (mostly from the United States, and a handful from Europe), most of which sent their founders and head brewers along. Which means for the festival attendee, it’s a chance to meet some of the most well known brewers in the land over a beer in an intimate but not too crowded environment. Chris Bauweraerts of Belgium’s Brasserie La Chouffe, Avery’s Adam Avery, Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione, Boulevard’s Steven Pauwels, Allagash’s Rob Tod, and New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert (among other luminaries) all held court in 2011.
BEST of the REST: COLORADO
FUNKWERKS
1900