GABF: The Baumer, a new sour blended beer from Great Divide
By William Brand
Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 11:38 am in General.
GABF Day 1 for me, although the first of the four sold-out sessions here in Denver already happened last night. My first stop this morning was Great Divide Brewing Co., a small, but mighty craft brewer on the edge of downtown Denver. If you’ve never tried their Oak Aged Yeti - a beer you can find in the Bay Area – it’s worth looking for. This is a big over 8 percent beer, lots of dark malt, great hops and vanilla and other earthy notes from the wood aging.
Great Divide was easy to find, I just followed a throng of guys, well, mostly guys down Arapahoe Street. When I got there at 10 a.m. there was already a line outside.
They were pouring two beers, a sour, they’re calling The Baumer and some very fresh Hibernation Winter Ale.
The Hibernation** is very young, lots of sweet malt, a bit of hoppiness. In a few months, this will be a decent holiday beer.
The Baumer was the real star. Brewer Taylor Reese said its a blend of two Great Divide Beers, Hades, a 7,.2 percent Belgian-style golden ale and Samurai, their 5 poercent rice beer. Hades was aged with fresh raspberries
in wooden whiskey barrels. Fermentation was brettanomyces wild yeast and a bacteria package.
Samurai was aged in steel. The two beers have only been aging three months, Taylor said. He jsut scooped off a bit of each beer and blended them for today’s tasting.
Wild beer: Hit of raspberries, then mild maltiness, then a rising sourness. I give it THREE STARS PLUS.
Taylor said they plan to age in quite a while longer and he expects it to become quite tart. Can’t wait to see this one in bottles.
It shows how amazingly experimental craft brewers are becoming. Anheuser-Busch - InBev take notes, but you’ll never catrch up.
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October 10th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Mr. Brand, I have been enjoying your columns in the San Jose Murky News. What a great career you have. Looking forward to more news from GABF. Colorado is such a beautiful state. I did a quick check of your archives but didn’t find what I was looking for. Did you attend any of the Gordon Biersch 20th anniversary events? I made it to the concert at the brewery. I did find your article that was published before the events and the beer reviews. I’m always looking forward to some great tasting holiday and seasonal beers.
“So many beers, so little time”
Fred
October 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Where can you find Oak Aged Yeti in the Bay Area? I’ve never seen any Great Divide beers in California!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
. I believe I saw it at Monument Wine & Spirits, 2250 Monument, Concord and/or at Ledger’s Liquors, 1399 University Ave.Berkeley.Monument is already closed, no answer. But I reached Ed Ledger. He checked and doesn’t have it now. However, he knows he has stocked Great Divide beers in the past, so he said he’s check and drop me an e-mail when he finds out the status.
I’ll post the news.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I have never seen their beers up here in NorCal. I have tried the Yeti and Hercules while visiting my wife’s family in Texas. Thought the Yeti was quite tasty, even though I was drinking it out of a styrofoam cup in sweltering mid-June on a lake on the TX/LA border. The Hercules DIPA was a disappointing malt bomb. Would like to try the Titan IPA and Old Ruffian.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:57 am
[...] was particularly smitten with a very special brew that they had brewed just for the conference - and I wasn’t the only one. The Baumer, as explained to me by Taylor, was made with Hades and Samurai worts, both of which [...]
November 11th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Whoops. Just dug your comments out of a pile of e-mail. Sorry for the delay. Unfortunately, I didn’t make to any of the Gordon-Biersch events. Sometimes, life presses in and it’s hard to get moving.