The Purists: Denver, CO

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

Frank Zappa

Posted on the Lone Tree Brewery Website.

There are places where people go to indulge in the art and the craft of drinking.  It is a place where everyone, and not just this lone lunatic, smells their beer before drinking.  It's a place where asking for a menu will get you a nod to the beer list scrawled on a black chalkboard above a row of pints.  It's a place that makes beer, and beer alone.  They will sell you beer, you will drink it and life is good.

Lone Tree brewing is a place like that.

'Tasting room' is the term often thrown around for a place like this, but I'm not much a fan of that term.   For one, it assumes you can't get a proper pint there.  This is not the case. You can.  You can get two or three if you like.  Five or six even.  Someone might start sizing you up for a flight out the front door much past that, but it's an option.

Second, there's a pretension attached.  Tasting room brings images of people in suits swirling wine around their mouths and spitting it into a bucket. (And they call themselves civilized.)  It's a pretension that might serve the wine world, but rarely serves beer.

 If anything, this is just a neighborhood bar.  It's a brewery that opens it's doors everyday so that people can stop by and enjoy a pint or two, just like any good neighbor should.  There's no kitchen for food, although I hear tell that it's a favorite destination for local food trucks.

It's a neighborhood bar for the beer geeks in the area.  Within minutes of sitting down and ordering a tasters flight I found myself engaged in conversation about the finer points of Lone Tree's beer selection.  The people I talked to knew just about every bar and restaurant that brews it's own beer  in the greater Denver area.  They gather here because, "The beer is good.  It's close.  It's quiet.  You just can't beat it."

Left to right: Helles, Blonde, Irish Red, Pale, IPA, Stout

Mountain Momma Hells:  Grassy pilsner aroma but with a flavor that blows pretty much any other light beer I've had in quite a while.  I picked up a good amount of light malt with a slight peach or light fruit flavor. There's a tiny bit of herbal hop character blended in there as well.  It became one of my favorite beers here and probably one of my favorite of all-time when it comes to the light styles.

Ariadne's Belgian Blonde: There was a very light woodsy aroma here.  The Belgian character took over in force in the flavor with lots of fruity esters lots of clove and cinnamon spice but not so much that the beer is undrinkable.  Overall pretty standard for the style.

Acres O Green Irish Red: No aroma to speak of.   Nice malty,woody, slightly smoky flavor right off the top.  The smoke quickly fades and some light spicy hop character takes over and it finishes just a little bit dry.

Toots Oatmeal Stout: This is a stout on the drier end of the flavor rainbow.  Chocolate aroma with a dry, roasted flavor.   Some woody, earthy flavors peak through with maybe a hint of leather as well.  

Outta Range Pale: Sweet orange citrus aroma which translate into the flavor profile as well.  I picked up some spiciness as I went on as well, but overall it was a nice, balance pale, although it might be flirting in IPA territory, methinks.  

Hoptree IIPA: This was a hop bomb that sort of crept up on me.  At first... the citrusy, floral hops were there and in force.  Their more astringent qualities were tempered by the malt so it was rather nice at first.   After a while... Maybe it was the fact that some of the medicinal flavors were starting to peek through or maybe the sheer amount of malt needed to tame this bastard was starting to get to me, but  after my 6oz sample I more or less had it with this.  It was pretty good, but the taster was about enough for me.