Beer and food pairings are all the rage: seared
Chilean sea bass with Japanese sweet potato mousselin paired with chardonnay
barrel-aged bière de garde, charcoal-grilled Canadian sirloin with sautéed asparagus
tips and ginger-infused nectarine puree paired with imperial Scottish gruit ale, and hand-strangled koala stuffed with 57 Hot Pockets and rare, heated
gazpacho paired with Russian kvass blended with quadrupel brewed with the sweat
of St. Relindis of Maaseik. That’s all
well and good but can I, like, just get a taco or something? An expertly paired beer/food course is
something I can totally get behind but, oftentimes, I just want to try a bunch
of craft beer and stuff my face with BBQ ribs and bratwurst. Thanks to the Front Range Rally, held in
Loveland and benefiting the Food Bank for Larimer County, beer geeks like me
got the chance to taste a ton of craft beer and
pair it with the unpretentious scrumptiousness from award-winning, local food
trucks.
 |
| The beer list and our funky cups |
Set in the parking lot of the Loveland Food Share,
the Rally, unlike Telluride Blues & Brews Festival or Rails & Ales Brewfest, may not win many awards for majestic scenery but the asphalt slab for
which the beer tents used as foundation wasn’t without its charms. Being held at such a site, the Rally seemed
like a spontaneous occurrence—like a flash mob of beer, food, and music just
popped up in this parking lot! It was
less contrived, more honest than most beer festivals that can sometimes try to
razzle-dazzle you with silent discos, quirky locals, and presentations all of
which I do enjoy but, really, when it
comes down to it, I’m here for the beer and it can be refreshing to cut the
frills from time to time.
Nicole and I pulled up to the Rally entrance, showed
our IDs, got wrist-banded, received our food truck tokens, and picked up our
tasting glasses. My delicate beer geek
sensibilities were faintly offended to see that the drinking vessels were
plastic cups with a molded shot glasses in the center (you pour the shot into
the center cup, your chaser into the outer ring, and then throw it down your
gullet). It seemed weird; like I was in
Cancun over Spring Break. But, in the
end, does it really matter? Is anybody that interested in proper vessels when they’re
walking around a parking lot, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, listening to local
folk rock bands, and enjoying a warm, spring afternoon? No, absolutely not. Not even I
was interested. I’m just being a persnickety
little prick, I guess.
Fortunately, the parking lot was quite large allowing
for many breweries to share the space—32 in all and one cider-maker—and each brewery brought several
beers. Suffice to say, there were plenty
of suds slinging in Loveland and, while I tried a lot, I barely made a dent in
the provided beer list. Here are some
that I thought stood above the crowds and why:
♦ Watermelon Kolsch-Style Ale from Fate Brewing Company. Holy cow! If they took the word “refreshing” and pureed
it into liquid, it would be this beer. It’s
light, watery, but still flavorful: the perfect thirst quencher.
♦ Bandit Brown from City Star Brewing just because we
finally tasted the base-style for
those fabulous vanilla and whisky-barreled versions we had at the Berthoud
taproom (click here).
♦ Juicy Peach Ale from Big Beaver Brewing Co. Like Watermelon Kolsch, it’s just plain
refreshing and it definitely lives up to its name in terms of flavor.
♦ Rub-A-Chub Kolsch from Big Beaver for the name
alone.
♦ Near Da Beach from Pateros Creek Brewing Co. I’ll just let their press release do the
talking for this one: “Spiced Colonial Ale – With the help of
Funkwerks and CB & Potts, we hand made a jerk seasoning using habanero,
allspice, cumin, and nutmeg and then brewed a biscuity English-style ale with a
sweet pineapple finish.”
♦ Sofie and Sofie Paradisi from Goose Island Beer Co. These guys may incur the wrath of
slighted beer geeks for selling out to Anheuser-Busch but they still make some
great stuff.
As it is with almost every beer event, it’s not about
the beer so much as it is about the people you meet—people such as the social
media manager at City Star (whom I’ve Twitter’d to on more than one occasion)
as well as the guys behind Echo Brewing Co.
We met up with volunteer and fellow beer blogger Dave of Fermentedly Challenged plus a lot of people with Indiana connections (Nicole was wearing a
Sun King Brewery shirt). One of those
Indiana folk was a brewer at The Fort Collins Brewery. We also chatted a bit with the folks at High Hops Brewery because I know they have strong connections in the hop farming
industry and that’s an agricultural pursuit in which I’d like to get my parents
involved. Probably a good retirement
job, don’t you think?
It was an excellent event and props go out to the
volunteers and brewers who made it so special.
Even when a gust of wind came blowing down the slopes and when the
cardboard garbage cans and tents—unable to stake into the asphalt—starting lifting
off the ground, the people running the show where right there picking up loose
trash and tethering down canopies with their own body weight. No wind was going to stop the beer from
pouring at the Front Range Rally!
Compared to other beer festivals, the Rally was quite
small but, as the cliché goes, great things come in small packages. It wasn’t overwhelming, it was outside in the
sunshine, there were lots of small, somewhat obscure local breweries, and many
of the attending breweries brought along some of their wackier, non-flagship
beers which I always appreciate.
The Front Range Rally is set to be an annual occurrence
so, if you missed it this year, catch it again in 2014. It’s fun and, although no beer geek needs an excuse to drink, drinking for
charity usually make you feel just a little
better about it.
Prost!
Chris
Nicole
I really enjoyed the small,
welcoming atmosphere of the Front Range Rally.
As we wandered from tent to tent, we were able to actually talk to the
brewers and learn a little bit about the beers that we were drinking. But, there was too much to choose from and we
didn’t have a chance to try everything.
Compared to a larger beer
festival like Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the Front Range Rally wasn’t
at all intimidating—I felt I could actually take a moment to relax. We were able to chat with fellow beer geeks as
we waited in line and met a couple with t-shirt slogans written in binary code.
We also met some other beer lovers that
had recently moved from Indiana so it’s a good thing I wore my Sun King shirt.
Chris and I agree that big
beer festivals are awesome because they offer so many different beers but the big festivals are impersonal;
you don’t get to enjoy your beer before you’re filling your glass again. My solution: regional GABFs. There are so many regions that Chris and I
don’t get to visit during the year and you can’t visit them all in one or two
nights at GABF. If they parced it out
into different sections of the country and held these events at different times
throughout the year, beer geeks might better explore our nation’s great beers.
Some of the Rally highlights:
1) The food from Quiero Arepas,
one of my favorite food trucks.
2) Watermelon Kӧlsch. I have been trying to get my hands on Hell or High Watermelon from 21st Amendment Brewery for a while now. This was
satisfying substitute.
3) Pome Mel, a cider from Colorado Cider Company made with Colorado wildflower honey.
4) Juicy Peach Ale from Big
Beaver Brewing Co., a nice thirst-quenching brew that is perfect for a hot,
summer afternoon.
5) Bandit Brown. This is one of my favorite beers that City
Star Brewing makes. They have several variations that I want to try, including
hazelnut and vanilla.
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