Raspberry Black IPA
Brewery: Strange Craft Beer
Location: Denver
IBU: 65
ABV: 6.5
*Photos: Angie Wright*

Always something unusual brewing at state’s only co-taproom

By Steve Graham

Tim Myers plans to tap a raspberry black IPA soon, but he’s not completely sure when … or how.

Despite running Denver’s first modern neighborhood brewery since 2010, Myers took Strange Craft Beer Company into uncharted territory late last year by combining some brewing operations and a taproom with Wit’s End Brewing.

“It’s another Strange experiment,” he said in a phone interview shortly before the merged taproom – a first for Colorado – opened in December.

Wit’s End moved into the Strange Craft space near Sports Authority Field, but owner Scott Witsoe is maintaining a nano-nanobrewing operation right next door.

“Scotty is moving into Strange but keeping 30 square feet of brewing space next door. So, we are going to have the world’s tiniest brewery,” Myers said.

To maintain a separate brewing license and operate as Wit’s End, Witsoe must produce at least one barrel of beer per year, so he will occasionally brew 10 gallons of experimental beer at a time in his tiny brewery.

The rest of the time, he will work alongside Myers and the Strange Craft crew, and regularly collaborate. Myers said one of their first moves will be a return to weekly experimentation.

About 16 months after opening Strange Craft, Myers was successful enough to upgrade from a one-barrel brewing system to a 10-barrel system. But he kept the smaller equipment for his famously creative one-barrel Wednesday releases. These have recently become more irregular, but Myers wants to make it a weekly tradition again.

“I want to get back to making 65 or 70 different brews a year,” he said. “We’ll be collaborating our creative ideas on that going into next year. We can challenge each other on what we can make next.”

He has already challenged himself to tap a raspberry black IPA in January, assuming Witsoe agrees.

“We’ll see how the roast and the hops play with the tartness of the raspberries,” he said.

Myers will create a pitch-dark IPA with plenty of hops and just the right roast flavor and color, and add 20 to 30 pounds of raspberry puree in the finishing tank.

“I don’t want it in the boil,” he said. “You run the risk of too much cider character. I just want that fruit flavor in there to play with the beer flavors.”

He said he might add the fruit in two stages to reduce the risk of overwhelming fruit flavor.

“It’s hard to get an overpitch of fruit out,” he said.

On the other hand, too little fruit can taste like a mistake.

“I don’t want people to think ‘There’s something there but I’m not sure if it’s fruit or if the keg was dirty,’” Myers said.

The one-barrel Wednesday test brews let Myers get immediate critiques from patrons at the bar.

“We can brew it and serve it within two to three weeks and get the feedback from the customers,” he said.

A pumpkin porter turned into a regular seasonal beer. Another odd idea, a sweet potato green chili beer, has become an annual Thanksgiving tradition.

Another first-time offering was a total failure. Myers used to collaborate on one-barrel Wednesday beers with Harry Smith of Black Sky Brewery. Smith really wanted to make a radish saison, but it never reached the taproom.

“I was checking it the first week and it was horrible,” Myers said. “It smelled like week-old mopwater. There was definitely a chemical reaction in there that didn’t work.”

Myers is hoping for more success with an upcoming saffron-spiced saison and a salted caramel almond stout.

“I want to make something big and bold but sweet that goes down nice on a cold day when it’s 10 degrees out and snowing,”
he said.

Myers said creating unique beers has become a basic part of staying in business in a very crowded craft beer market.

“We’re at a unique crossroads,” he said. “We’ve really got to be on top of our game now. We’ve got to constantly work on getting our name out there without doing the same old same old every day. All of us keeping each other on our toes by maintaining that high level of quality is good.”

Steve Graham is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor who likes taking his two young boys biking, hiking and brewery-hopping in northern Colorado.