Pizza and Beer, Rocky Mountain High Edition: Denver, CO.

I'm sensing at pattern.

Pizza and beer are, of course, a match made in fat, happy, drunken heaven.  The two words flow together like poetry.  In fact, if I were to yell, "Who wants pizza and beer?" everyone would raise their hands with the possible exception of those who had recently had pizza or those who don't drink. (You're in the wrong bloody blog if you're in the latter category.  Seriously, how did you even get here?)

So it shouldn't be all that surprising that I am running into more and more pizzeria/ microbreweries scattered among the landscape.  For example there is Oggies, a chain I have been seeing with more and more frequency across this great land and I recently ran into Papago brewery in Arizona that doesn't specialize in pizza per se, but they have a certain mad scientist approach to the dish.


Dads and Bros. Breweria is one of those, a pizzeria and brewery shacking up together, splitting the bills and making sweet love.

"It's actually the smallest microbrewery in Colorado," said Paul as he was pouring me my taster's flight.  The first thing I liked about this place was the staff.  The good people slinging beer would stop and talk about their beer and the brewery.  The owner occasionally wandered by to glad-hand patrons, shoot the shit and ask the key question,

"So what do you think of the Basil Watermelon Wheat?"

More on that in a moment.

"It's kind of cool to operate on this scale, you know?  It allows us to kind of experiment."

The second thing I liked about this place is that they are a bit of a wild card when it comes to brewing.  They have some pretty standard brews, as you will see in a moment, but every once in a while, there's something quite a bit different.  A beer that makes you're eyes go wide and forces you to look down into your glass to see what they hell you just drank.  In a good way, mind.

Basil Watermelon Wheat: "Not our most popular beer," Paul said when I ordered a pint.  "People either really like it, like you.  Or people...don't."  In the middle of a hot summer day, I thought this was a nice beer to have.  It has a very, very light fruity aroma.  As far as the flavor goes, the name pretty much says it all.  Watermelon's flavor is so light it's amazing that it comes through at all and it's backed up with a sweet slightly minty herbal flavor.  Watermelon and basil.   I don't see myself filling the fridge with this beer, but for something refreshing and different, I'll give it a swig or two.

Fathom Amber: The aroma on this beer had a very nice sweet toffee, caramel character to it.  Unfortunately, this is one of those where the smelling the beer was better then actually drinking it.   The richness in the aroma was gone and the flavor was very light with herbal, woody flavors mixed in that clashed with the malt.  It wasn't bad, but not my favorite.

Toffee Porter: Mocha coffee aroma.  This is a coffee porter with a sweet chocolate character that makes for a much sweeter beer.  There was no bitterness that I could find, just a lot of creamy coffee mocha flavors.

Citrasmack: Okay now that we've finished with all that malt, it's time to temper that with a dose of hops.  Citrasmack had a nice spicy citrus aroma.  The flavors from the hops were a little strange.  I wouldn't say they clashed, but it was one of those times where couldn't quite decide whether I like the thing or not.  I picked up some pine and citrus throughout with a lemongrass finish.

Liquid Resume: Ah, if only every job application required one of these.  This pale ale was basically a lighter version of the Citrasmack.  I picked up more earthy flavors among the pine and citrus with just a little more spice.  I got most of the qualities from the IPA, but at a volume that was more palatable.

So it's like this.  The past week was spent in kind of a slow stagger down the rocky mountains.  I started in Denver, wandered into Santa Fe, passed out for a moment in Flagstaff and finished in Phoenix.  It all happened in the space of a week, but screw it, I'm reporting it over the course of the next month or so.

It's a lot of territory to cover, so grab a pint or two.
Cheers.