 |
| The outside is inside at Front Range |
Brewery oversaturation: it’s a phrase oft heard
spilling forth from the maws of craft brewing critics. Critics who kill our buzz, smugly shake their
head with every new brewery opening, and,
despite the evidence that craft beer hasn’t even begun to moisten the market, they zealously stand by their assertions. They’re party-poopers, they’re wet blankets,
they’re sticks in the mud, and they’re seemingly blind to all indications that
they might just be wrong. I won’t lecture
on the faulty assumptions of these Chicken Littles—“The Brewery Industry is Falling!”
alarmists—you can click the above link, peruse
the Brewers Association website,
or simply do a Google search on the subject and you’ll find plenty of articles
arguing for and against the myth of
brewery oversaturation.
 |
| Enjoying the "view" at Front Range |
Instead, I’d like to relay a bit of anecdotal
evidence; a morsel of information that, when pieced together with other
fragments of data, creates a collage indicating anything but market oversaturation. I speak of Lafayette, Colorado,
a town with 25,733 people and three breweries within 1.6 miles of one another. A town with a modest population such as this
would surely be considered oversaturated, yes?
Notwithstanding the supposed struggles of operating amid proximate
competition, when Nicole and I took a trip to
Front Range Brewing Company,
The Post Brewing Co., and
Odd13 Brewing, all three were packed wall-to-wall,
shoulder-to-shoulder with thirsty patrons.
Oversaturation my eye! Lafayette
needs, like, eight more breweries just to keep up with demand!
 |
| Mountain Shadow |
Our first stop was Front Range, one of the oddest
brewery locations I’ve come across. I’ve
been to
breweries in churches, I’ve been to
breweries in barns, I’ve been to
breweries in factories, I’ve been to
breweries in baseball stadiums, and, like Front
Range, I’ve been to many breweries in strip malls. Front Range is different, though, in that it’s
in a
Bio-Dome-esque atrium—the “exterior” doors and windows actually separate the
brewery from an enclosed hallway featuring park benches, trees, and skylights
giving the illusion of outdoors while actually being safely snuggled under roof
and between walls. It’s a bit funky and,
at a glance, one may think—even for a split-second—that they are, indeed,
gazing into a small patch of forest.
As suburban a setting as Front Range finds itself,
the interior oozes Old World charm with its barrels and wood-paneled tanks on
full display imparting a rustic, cozy ambiance.
The bar top, designed with craft beer bottle caps encased in thick
layers of lacquer, also exudes character.
It’s a hip little corner on the mall-walker’s route and their Mountain
Shadow Black IPA (5.5% ABV), with its black body, mocha foam, and flavors of
bittersweet chocolate and hoppy aftertaste, is enough to entice anybody to this
wonderfully weird taproom.
 |
| Brew equipment on display at Front Range |
Next up: Post Brewing, a member of the
Big Red F family
of restaurants that caused quite a stir in craft beer circles when they lured
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery alumnus Bryan Selders out of his self-imposed
beer-making retirement and into their brewing facility. There’s certainly a great deal of experience that
goes behind the beers at Post; it’s not every day a small, Colorado brewery
nabs a brewer from one of America’s biggest, most famous breweries.
Like the nearby
Gravity Brewing, Post is located in a
VFW hall (the difference is that Gravity is in an
operating VFW while
the Post took over an abandoned hall), hence
the name. The interior designers worked
magic, though, and turned a once surely-stuffy space into a chic hunter’s lodge
with timber accents, Rosie, a rose-covered elk mounted on the wall, and massive
brewing equipment housed in a glass box.
It’s a mix of rural and urban and the end result is sleek yet woodsy. There’s also an immense beer garden in the
back that ought to be great fun in the summertime.
 |
| Rosie at Post |
Post bills itself as a fried chicken and beer place
and, if it weren’t so doggone busy, I’d have loved to have a sit, gnaw on some
wings, and down some suds because, quite honestly, fried chicken and a brewski sounds
like my perfect meal. Seriously, if I
were on death row, that’d be my last meal.
Of course, being from the Midwest, I have a natural aversion to fried
chicken cooked anywhere outside of America’s breadbasket; I mean, I love the
healthy, active lifestyle of Colorado and I love our populace’s general fitness
but that usually translates into piss-poor comfort food. You want good fried chicken? You got to have grease and salt, dammit! I’ll ski the calories off later, right now I
just want to grub on some fatty poultry!
To be fair, I never got a chance to try Post’s chicken and it may well
be among the best fried chicken in the world.
When I come back, I’ll make a point to order a heaping pile of crispy
brown goodness and, in the end, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it because, hey, it’s still
fried chicken. I do, however, doubt it
could ever hold a candle to
Wagner’s Village Inn of Oldenburg, Indiana.
 |
| Tanks at Post |
I ordered the Big Rosie Porter (6.8% ABV), named for
the hulking head overseeing the taproom but, because I get antsy in large
crowds, I tucked myself and Nicole into a corner, drank my beer, but didn’t
take the time to jot down tasting notes.
It was good but the Post hadn’t been open for very long so the tap list
was lacking; I look forward to visiting again and trying more beers on a quieter
night.
 |
| Big Rosie Porter |
Lastly, we popped over to Odd13. Just as congested as the previous two
breweries, Nicole and I decided to drink our beers on the back porch. The icy chill of the night was certainly
something with which to contend but it was worth the briskness just to get a
little elbow and breathing room. Thus,
we strode by the mini-arcade in the corner, past the original artwork depicting
the
“superheroes” of Odd13 beer, and walked up to the jam-packed bar and
ordered a taster (if we were going to brave the wintry weather, we didn’t want
to have to endure it for long).
The beer I ordered was a brown ale brewed with spruce
tips. The name?
Spruce Campbell (7.2% ABV). Yes, the craft brewing industry is full of
pop culture, punny beer names and to prattle on about each and every goofball appellation
would require the lifetimes of a thousand beer bloggers; it’s a popular trend
these days for brewers to give their creations names that make their customers
titter to themselves as they realize the reference. This style of clever play-on-words names is
so commonplace it’s not even clever anymore.
 |
| Outside Odd13 |
 |
| Arcade at Odd13 |
But this beer is named for
Bruce Campbell; perhaps the greatest actor of his generation, famous
for such notable roles as
Ash Williams,
Elvis Presley,
Bruce Campbell, and
“Snooty Usher.” The man who pioneered the career
path of starring in movies ten people watch a thousand times and playing bit
parts in movies a thousand people watch ten times. The man whose mighty chin could crush the combined
mentums of Jay Leno and John Travolta
as if they were made of peanut brittle and whose sarcastic wit makes him every
comic con’s darling. The man
who retweeted my Untappd check-in to his namesake beer; probably the coolest thing
that could possibly happen on Twitter.
He’s the man. And the beer’s
pretty good, too (although it's an affront to the greatness of Bruce to have his beer placed in
"The Sidekicks" series; it takes a full-blown hero to defeat an army of
Deadites, you know).
 |
| Spruce Campbell |
We exited Odd13 and gasped, taking in our first
breathe of air not shared with ten other people. Oversaturation, eh? Well, if the market
really can’t handle any more breweries, wouldn’t have all these
taprooms been empty? Ghost towns? Quiet as a librarian in a morgue in a
sound-proof booth? Consider, too, that
Gravity Brewing,
Crystal Springs Brewing Company, and
Industrial Revolution Brewing Company, while not in Lafayette, are in the towns adjacent: Louisville
and Erie, respectively. It would be hard
to find a region that, per capita, has the same concentration of breweries as
these mid-sized towns wedged between the Denver metro and Boulder and yet they absolutely
buzz with activity. Come talk to me
about oversaturation when patrons to these breweries can go the bathroom
without rubbing shoulders with every person at the bar; until then, you might want
to reconsider your stance.
Prost!
Chris
 |
| Tanks at Front Range |
 |
| Bar top at Front Range |
 |
| Bruce Campbell artwork at Odd13 |
