Gather around the firkins

Great Divide's table

Bristol Brewing’s Firkin Rendezvous was the kind of festival I craved these days. Anyone could hit multiple festivals a weekend in most states, especially Colorado. Festivals need to stand out. All the beer came from firkins, the little casks breweries often use for a small-batch variation of a standard beer. Fruit, spices, oak chips and hops are among the many additions one can find in a firkin beer.

Bristol held the festival inside its brewery, on the ground floor of the Ivywild School, a former elementary school turned into a small-business hub. I splurged for the VIP entry, which included a T-shirt, lunch and entry into the festival an hour before regular admissions. The add-ons were worth it, especially the lunch I tackled as soon as I got in, a roast beef sandwich so tender it didn’t need juice for dipping.

Bristol's barrel aging brews

Many a beer festival has been derailed by eating after ample sampling. I had sampled many variations of Great Divide’s Yeti imperial stout, but none as adventurous as this version with a load of fresh Himalayan spices. I had chai-spice beers and ciders before, but no in which the spices were as bold and immediate as this version of Yeti.

Fortunately, the Firkin Rendezvous breweries showed off their creativity and it wasn’t just a parade of stouts and porters. Denver’s Chain Reaction Brewing dropped an orange vanilla cream ale that would have been good at any time of the year. A mandarin orange Kolsch also added some needed lightness to the festival options.

Florence Brewing Company poured a Belgian-style dubbel brighter and less sweet than almost every Belgian dubbel to pass this palette. Many of these beers I enjoyed are lost to the moment. I would rather enjoy the festival than jot notes these days. There were a number of hoppy specimens, including a Double DDH with experimental hops.

 Bristol had three of its own, and I tried all but the Pineapple IPA due to an aversion to pineapple in beer. Divide-based Paradox produced a tiramisu takeoff of their Baltic porter that won my vote for best in show. A range of other brewers from Telluride to Pagosa Springs to Greeley had beers worth tasting at least once for the variation from big-production numbers. Fort Collins' Horse & Dragon produces a drinkable Irish red, but it becomes a new animal with the addition of lemon and basil.

I didn’t stick around to see if Paradox won. Three hours of tasting had worn me out. I walked the two miles back to my car – a tactic to allow me to sober up by the time I needed to drive – and the taste of the best beers in those little vessels still clung to my palette.

View of the brewery