Flying Dog is moving...

Just got the information that the Colorado brewery Flying Dog is moving all brewing operations to Frederick, Maryland.

This is one of my favorite breweries the last couple of years and this seems to be a big step for the brewery. In reality it means all operations and that they are closing down all brewing in Denver.

"Here’s the word from president and CEO Eric Warner:"

As you may have heard, Flying Dog Brewery recently announced that we are embarking on the next step in our illustrious, 17 year history of crafting remarkable beer by concentrating all of our brewing and production to the brewery in Frederick, MD, where 70% of Flying Dog Beer is already being brewed. This move will take place in January and we are working to ensure that our entire production team will be able to make this move over to Maryland. Accounting, sales, marketing and other administrative functions will remain largely unaffected by this change and our HQ will remain in Denver.

We decided to make this proactive move as it has become increasingly important to be extremely nimble in today’s business environment. Only those who can quickly adapt in the hyper-Darwinian economy will survive and in today’s craft brewing landscape. We are facing unprecedented cost pressures due in large part to the tremendous hop and malt cost increases. Concentrating our brewing operations to one facility will help us become more efficient while maintaining our exceptionally high brewing standards. This is a smart, proactive move for our growing company and will allow us to most efficiently use our resources.

The Frederick facility is a state-of-the-art brewery that has already been producing great beer for Flying Dog and we look forward to ramping up production and growing our business even more than the +20% trends we are experiencing in 2007. The bottling line in Frederick has lower oxygen uptake at filling than the one in Denver, which translates to better flavor stability and longer shelf life. It also kicks out bottles at twice the pace of the line in Denver. The brewhouse in Maryland is also capable of brewing a wider range of recipes than the one in Denver. Finally, the brewery in MD plans on substantial capital expenditures and plant upgrades (close to a million bucks in 2008 alone) to continue to brew better beer in an efficient and environmentally friendly way

It will be interesting so see what this will mean for the brewery and what will actually happen with the current brewery in Denver. At least it feels good that we actually got to visit the brewery in Denver just a couple of months before it was closed. Anyway it seems that the change is not so drastic when you see that actually 70% is already brewed in Maryland. The plan is at least to grow and that is always good I guess. The company is on pace to brew 50,000 barrels of beer this year, a 20 percent increase.

Dugges Ale & Porter Brewery at Denver?

Yes I know it has been a while since GABF-07, but we promised ourselves to show our nice T-shirts from Dugges over at GABF when we brought them with us to the USA.

So here it is, you could not get the great beers at GABF or anywhere else but we at least brought the T-shirts and did some advertising for our favorite Swedish brewery.

I guess you have to start somewhere, and you never know, you might come across a High Five IPA or a Idjit somewhere in the States quite soon, or at least in a distant future, :-).

What about Dugges?, well it is tiny brewery in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden that for me is a Swedish version of breweries like Stone or Moylans. Classic beers inspired by the USA, England, Sweden and beer styles like IPA, Stout, Barleys and Imperial Porters, etc, in short beers with a attitude.

The have great beers like;

Dugges Avenyn Ale
Dugges Bollox!
Dugges Britannia
Dugges Celebration Ale
Dugges Fuggedaboudit!
Dugges Gnoffs APA
Dugges High Five!
Dugges Holy Cow!

And when we are still at it, here is picture number 2 of "Dugges in the States" advertising campaign (not sponsored by the brewery, if you thought so), :-).

GBTD-07: The tour and the beers

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Get your own

Our beer tour in Colorado during the GABF was mostly about the beers, so what did we have?.

But it is always a bit tricky to keep track of everything you drink, so I have probably missed some of the beers during the trip (mostly during the massive number of strange brews we had or did not have at the Falling Rock during the late nights in Denver).

Any way here is the "complete" nerd list;

Saturday October 6
1. Boulder Beer Cold Hop
2. Mountain Sun Illusion Dweller
3. Mountain Sun I&IPA

Sunday October 7
4. Pumphouse Kilt lifter
5. Pumphouse Flashpoint IPA
6. Pumphouse Red Alert
7. Pumphouse Pyro Porter
8. Pumphouse Igniter Pale Ale
9. Avery Elites Brown Ale
10. ODells 90 Shilling Ale
11. Left Hand Milk Stout
12. Avery IPA
13. ODells 5 Barrel Pale Ale
14. Redfish Treehugger Organic IPA
15. Boulder Beer Hazed & Infused
16. Redfish Big Easy Pale Ale
17. Walnut Seasonal Wheat Beer
18. Walnut Buffalo Gold
19. Walnut Indian Peaks Pale Ale
20. Walnut St. James Irish Red Ale
21. Walnut Big Horn Bitter
22. Walnut Old Elle Brown Ale
23. Walnut Devils Thumb Stout
24. Bj Tatanka Stout
25. Bj Piranha Pale Ale
26. Bj PM Porter
27. Stone Black IPA (Old Chicago)

Monday October 8
28. Avery Hog Heaven
29. Avery The Reverend (oaked)
30. Avery Dramant
31. Avery Breezes Bad Karma oaked (cask)
32. Avery The Beast 07
33. Oskar Blues Tenfidy Stout
34. Oskar Blues IPA
35. Oskar Blues Pale Ale
36. Estes Park Renegade IPA
37. Estes Park Samson Stout
38. Estes Park Trail Ridge Red
39. Estes Park Porter
40. Estes Park Raspberry Wheat
41. Estes Park Stinger
42. Estes Park Gold
43. New Belgium Fat Tire
44. CooperSmiths Sigdas Green Chilli
45. CooperSmiths Not Brown Ale
46. CooperSmiths Oktoberfest
47. CooperSmiths Kölsch
48. CooperSmiths Punjabi Pale Ale
49. ODells 5 Barrel Pale Ale
50. ODells Cutthrout Porter
51. Full Sail IPA
52. Stone IPA

Tuesday October 9
53. New Belgium 1554
54. New Belgium Lips of Faith
55. New Belgium 2 Below
56. La Folie Sour Brown
57. Abbey
58. Fort Collins Brewery Major t p Wheat
59. Fort Collins Brewery Retro Red
60. Fort Collins Brewery Rocky Mountain IPA
61. Fort Collins Brewery Z lager (rauch bier)
62. Fort Collins Kidd Lager
63. Fort Collins Chocolate Stout
64. ODells Hillbilly Hefeweissen
65. ODells Double Pilsner
66. ODells Isolation Ale
67. ODells cutthroat Stout (nitro)
68. ODells Easy Street
69. ODells Levity Amber Ale
70. ODells 5 barrel Pale Ale
71. ODells 90 Shilling Ale
72. ODells IPA
73. Cutthroat Porter
74. Rock Bottom (Longmont) Double Barrel Pale Ale
75. Dry Dock SS Mirror Pale
76. Dry Dock Mild
77. Dry Dock Enterprise IPA (nitro)
78. Dry Dock Breakworker Pale Ale
79. Green Flash West Coast IPA
80. Summit Extra Pale Ale
81. Boulder Beer Hazed & Infused
82. Arrogant Bastard
83. Great Divide Titan IPA (Cask)
84. Victory Hop Devil
85. Oskar Blues Gordon Double IPA

Wednesday October 10
86. Boulder Beer Mojo IPA
87. Boulder Beer Mojo Risin Double IPA
88. Boulder Beer Stout
89. Left Hand Milk Stout
90. Left Hand Imperial Stout
91. Pumphouse Pyro Porter
92. Oskar Blues Oaked Gordon
93. Oskar Blues Pale Ale
94. Oskar Blues tenfid Imperial Stout (canned)
95. Lagunitas IPA
96. Lagunitas Undercover Shutdown

Thursday October 11
97. Great Divide DPA
98. Great Divide Titan IPA
99. Great Divide Hibernation
100. Great Divide Barley Wine
101. Great Divide Belgian IPA
102. Breckenridge Amber
103. Breckenridge Pale Ale
104. Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout
105. Breckenridge Vanilla Porter
106. Breckenridge R220 Red
107. Breckenridge 471 IPA
108. Breckenridge Lager
109. Avery Uber Schwein (oaked hog heaven)
110. Summit Pale Ale
111. Stone Double Bastard 05
112. Stone Imperial Stout 03
113. HeBrew Jewelation Whiskey Oaked
114. HeBrew Lenny On Rye (RIPA)
115. HeBrew Anniversary 11
116. Stone Anniversary 11
117. Stone Vanilla Porter

Friday October 12
118. Flying Dog Double Dog Pale
119. Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale
120. Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Stout
121. Flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine

Saturday October 13
122. ??? IPA (pitcher)
123. Anchor Steam (cask)

Sunday October 14
124. Great Divide DPA

This was the beer that I tested myself and is not connected to the actual GABF festival, which is an other story.

GBTD-07 (GABF): A tribute to the best bartender in the World

This is a simple and very short tribute to a bartender at the Falling Rock tap house in Denver. Thanks for being the coolest bartender in the world and thanks for making the beer moments at Falling Rocks during the GABF week a amazing time that we will not forget in a very long time.

Difficult to explain but we really like the Falling Rock establishment, it had everything you want in a bar. A rough place with simple rules, meaning serving the best beers in the world as fast as possible.

Sometimes it was difficult to get a beer, but when you finally learned that you got your single second of reconition with you and you succeed in knowing exactly want you want it turned out well and you got your beer in a second. Did you miss it you had to wait for the next turn, if you got one!.

It is not easy when 100 people are all screaming we want beer and you simply answer back; "What do you want?, give it to me?, What do you want?". Myself had not served a single beer with that pressure, really cool, simply outstanding.
Hope you can handle the silence now when the GABF is over and everything go to normal.

If you have never been to Falling Rock and do not know how a good bar should be, according to me, here is the shortlist of my best rough beer bars in the USA that play in the same league as the Falling Rock.

1. Barcade, Brooklyn
2. Toronado, San Fran
3. Bukowski's Tavern, Boston

GBTD-07 (GABF): The Great Divide Luncheon

Before the festival had actually started we where invited through the good friends at OT to a special get together early party over at the Great Divide brewery.

At 12.00 sharp on the Thursday av bunch of happy beer drinkers got together and could enjoy the great bears of GD within the brewery itself.

It is always fun for a beer geek to actually get the opportunity to have your favorite beers at the actual source and also meet the creators of these wonderful products.

[Original picture removed on request] [140513]

We had a great lunch and got the possibility to help yourself through out the brewery. It interesting to see that such a great brewery and a brewery that you see as quite big is housed in such a small complex in central Denver (quite central anyway).

Simply you can say that you do not need much space to create great products. As it was free we sampled a lot of the different brews available both at the party inside the brewery and also at the nearby tap room (DPA, Titan, Hibernation 07 (heard they also had H06 but did not see it available), barley wine, belgian IPA, samuray, the lot).

Best beer?, the oaked imperial stout and the new fresh hop beer (had earlier already bought a bottle to get home an enjoy for myself!, seems that the concept of "fresh hops" is quite in right now.)).

The Tap room at GD

We also met some interesting people during this event, among them our good friends of OT and Akkurat, a guy also from Sweden with the name of Marc who is working for Galatea (a big beer distributor in Sweden), Jim from last days brew cruise and also Ray McCoy (Beer drinker of the year 2003) and his wife Cornelia (also a beer drinker of the year winner!).

So as a summary this was a excellent way to enjoy beers early in the day and a very good start for the rest of the festival and something I am glad I could join.

Cheers

A beer vulcano at GD?

Great Beer Trip to Denver 2007 (GABF) has started!:

I and the rest of the beer crew has left for Denver and this years GABF. So it will probably be a little bit slow over here during next week. But you will never know, it might be possible to add some live updates during the trip, but nothing that is promised.

Anyway we will have a nice little beer trip in Colorado and hopefully experience some new and existing breweries and their beers. In short the trip will look something like this;

Main plan

6 Oct Stockholm – Denver – Car to Boulder
7 Oct Boulder – Longmont (pub) – Boulder (TPBC, ABC)
8 Oct Boulder – Estes Park (EPBC) -- Grand Canyon -- Fort Collins (motel i FC)
9 Oct Fort Collins (under dagen, NBB, OBC, FCB) -- Denver (hotell Denver)
10 “Boulder County Brews Cruise” (Starts in Denver) (BB, LHBC, OBGB, RM)
11 Denver tour + breweries (GDB, FDB, BBBP, RM) + The Great Divide Lunch (12.00)
12 Oct Denver (GABF I)
13 Oct Denver (GABF II)
14 Get back home again

Breweries:
Denver: Dry Dock Brewing Co (in Aurora), Great Divide Brewing Company, Flying Dog Brewery, Breckenridge BBQ & Brew Pub
Boulder: Boulder Beer, Twisted Pine Brewing Company, Avery Brewing Company
Longmont: Left Hand Brewing Company
Lyons: Oskar Blues Grill and Brewery
Estes Park: Estes Park Brewing Company
Fort Collins: New Belgium Brewing, Odell Brewing Company, Fort Collins Brewing

Bars:
Denver: Falling Rock Tap House, Breckenridge Ball Park Brew Pub, Cherry Cricket, The, Old Chicago, Blake Street Tavern, Victory American Grill And Bar
Boulder: Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery, Southern Sun Pub and Brewery
Fort Collins: Choice City Butcher Shop And Deli, Washington's Bar & Grill, Lucky Joe's Sidewalk Saloon, Pickle Barrel

And our planned route

Denver here we come...

Not yet, but it is really getting close now for the Denver beer experience. I and the rest of the beer crew are getting close for our beer trip of the year at GABF.

Hope to see you all over in Denver.

Cheers.