Denver Beer Company (Jason's Take)

Location: 1695 Platte St, Denver, CO

Website: denverbeerco.com

The Story:
We chose a fine summer's day to visit the Denver Beer co. Sure, that summer day happened to be in the middle of February, but it doesn't make it any less nice. Of course, we weren't the only ones with outdoor beer drinkin' on our minds. The place was packed, inside and out, with a wide variety of dogs, children and hipsters. Everyone but us there fell into one of those categories. And the hipsters were playing Scrabble. For God's sake, they were playing Scrabble on a picnic table at the bar! I wouldn't let it stop me, though. I would drink next to these hipsters if I had to be drunk to do it.

The Beers:

Cost: $7 for six 4oz. samples

1. Colorado Common (5.8% ABV)
This was only the first in a series of confusing beers. This schitzo beer smelled really malty, like malt-o-meal with a little extra malt added. But the taste wasn't very malty at all. The first part of the taste was a little like iced tea; light bitterness with a bright support. The finish, though, tasted like fresh squeezed ass. I really liked the first half of this beer, but the second half ruined it all.

Rating: 1/10

2. Smoked Lager (5.4% ABV)
In our review of Fort Collins Brewery, I talked about my interest in beer that tastes like bacon (Z Lager). But the Z has nothing on Smoked Lager when it comes to pure, unadulterated bacon taste. Again, the smell of this beer was completely misleading. It smelled like the worst kind of cat-pee IPA, but had none of that in the actual beer flavor. In fact, it tasted exactly like drinking a glass of bacon. Up until this beer, I was absolutely convinced that there was only one thing that tasted like bacon, and that's bacon. But oh how wrong I was. This was like they'd taken a regular lager and put a whole package of bacon in it. I don't know that I'd be able to drink a whole ton of this beer, but it may go nicely with some lettuce and tomato.

Rating: 7/10

3. Big Bang Belgian Pale Ale (5.7% ABV)
This was a very open beer. It had orange high notes balanced by a malty depth and small berry hints. This ale really filled the middle of my mouth, like I expect from a Belgian. Overall, it was a little heavy for a pale ale, but I thought it had nice balance and flavor.

Rating: 9/10

4. Graham Cracker Porter (5.9% ABV)
Let me be clear. I hate gimmick beers. I think it's the worst kind of pandering to people who want to be beer snobs by people who have no pride. Gimmick beers are the Brittany Spears of the beer world. They should be drug into the street and shot on site. Honestly, a graham cracker porter? Why not just lay on your back, put a keg on your junk, and stick your dick in the beer? You've already fucked it up anyway. (See what I did there?). Just thinking this would be a workable concept is worthy of a self-administered shot to the face. The fact that they actually make this on a regular basis and people buy it? I don't even know what to say. The beer itself tastes like a ground up Heath bar. It's sort of chocolate and sort of toffee, with eighty bazillion pounds of sugar added so that it gets that nice sickly, syrupy sweetness that all five-year-olds live in their breakfast cereal. The problem there is that this is not cereal, but beer, and is being served to full grown adults. This stuff was so sweet that I couldn't even finish the sampler for fear of getting diabetes and losing my foot.

Rating: 2/10

5. Sweet Teat Milk Stout (4.8% ABV)
I'm still undecided on the milk stout as a beer. I've had one great one, and a couple of mediocre ones. The Sweet Teat was in the second category. It's smooth but heavy. It's got the fullness that a stout should with very little bitterness on top. Drinking this, you'd have to go slow, though, and make sure to chew every bite thoroughly. If you chewed enough of it, though, this brew could certainly see you through a winter's night.

Rating: 7/10

6. Barrel aged Stormy Winter Stout (9.6% ABV)
Just on alcohol content, this is the heavy hitter in the DBC lineup. It's a regular stout that's aged in wine barrels to give it that, "I wasn't satisfied in just making good beer" feel. It's got the heavy stoutiness, accented with tannons from the wine barrels, which are definitely present in the flavor. However, I've never had a good beer that was aged in a barrel from another booze. The beer just gets overwhelmed with the other booze flavor. Whiskey barrel beer? Tastes like whiskey. Wine barrel beer? Tastes like wine. I don't have anything against the taste of wine, per say. Hell, I love a good Ripple as much as the next dirty, bearded guy that gets paid in sandwiches to fight down at the bus station, but if I'm drinking beer, I want it to taste like beer, damnit.

Rating 3/10

Special Art Criticism Section

First, let's have some criticism of blogger. I wrote a paragraph on the above statue, and blogger just decided to erase it in the time between writing it and the time that I posted it. Thanks, blogspot, I didn't really want to say all that stuff anyway.
This statue resides just around the corner from the DBC. Just look at this thing, will you? It's a giant pile of livers. Is this art? If so, is this art that belongs in public? Think about this, someone from the city of Denver was like, "We should get some art to put downtown near all the hipster bars and the mortuary with a big neon sign." And someone else responded, "You know, I know an artist that does these big piles of livers." And the first person (who, I assume, had been sniffing glue) said "LIVERS? Brilliant! We must have that!" Seriously, a big pile of livers isn't art, it's a cry for help. And the fact that the city paid for this pile of livers tells me that the "artist" is not getting the help he/she needs and is probably, right at this moment, telling someone in a pit "It puts the lotion on it's skin or it gets the hose again."