Colorado
Springs' second annual Beers Made By Walking wrapped up last weekend.
It's an event that we organize during the summer. We invite brewers onto
nature walks in the Pikes Peak Region and then we make beer inspired by
the edible and medicinal plants we find on the trails. This year we
commissioned eight beers, they were brewed at Pikes Peak Brewing and all
the local beer and nature lovers came out and celebrated.
Upon
arrival, visitors were treated to a twenty page catalog/menu that
talked about our hike up to Palmer Lake Reservoir and it had bios of
each brewer with information on the conceptual development and
decision-making that went into each beer. We served four beers at a time
on hand-made serving trays that were made of local beetle-kill pine.
The
first four beers worked really nicely side by side. There was a
sunflower honey ale by Lefty, a Gose beer with bee balm and sumac by
Scott Werner, a kriek with chokecherries by Scott Simmons and a pale ale
with maple and rye by Josh Adamski. The second set of beers included a
brown ale with maple and juniper by Mike Bordick, a porter with plum by
Oren Weil and Bryan Paradisi, a Belgian pale ale with rose hips and wild
hops by Zenia Brink and Carol White, and finally a rose hip and sumac
saison by John Landreman. All the beers were good and a had a lovely
drinkable quality them.
Jeff
Aragon, the brewer for Paradox Beer Co, with Chris Wright, the brewer
at Pikes Peak. Paradox just released their beer to the public a day
before this event.
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| Zenia Brink and Carol White hanging out. They brewed the rose hip and wild hop Belgian Pale Ale. |
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| Jessica Erickson and Oren Weil. Oren brewed the Plum Porter, which also had been aged on brandied oak chips. |
Scott
Simmons and I built a jockey box for the event and served three beers
out of it. We admired our creation throughout the evening and we thought
the draft lines carrying the beer were beautiful in their own right.
Here we see the lines carrying the maple rye, the chokecherry Kriek, and
the Gose.
A
look at the catalog/menu. Each page was chalked full of text, drawings,
and photos all about the beer, the brewers, and the hikes. Many
visitors sat down with the beers and read through the whole catalog.
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| I got to stand on a table and thank the brewers for participating and Pikes Peak for making this possible. |
The
event brought us all together to celebrate the landscape and the
creative work and of our local brewers who re-interpreted the landscape
via beer. One of these beers was selected to be re-brewed on Pikes Peak
Brewing's larger system and it will be taken up to Wynkoop Brewing on
October 9th for the Denver Beers Made By Walking tasting event.
Chris selected Lefty's beer, the sunflower seed honey ale. which he
will brew up later this week. Additionally, Scott Simmons has re-brewed
the chokecherry Kriek on a 10 gallon pilot-system for the Denver event
so that Pikes Peak will have two beers.
Here's
the group of brewers together. John Landreman and Bryan Paradisi
weren't able to join us but they were there in spirit. We all had a good
time and look forward to doing this again the future. Again I'd like to
say thank you to all the brewers and Pikes Peak Brewing for making this
year in BMBW a memorable one.
