Lone Tree Brewing Caleb's Ramblings

So after a fairly mediocre showing by The Denver Beer Company, we decided to drive way the hell down to South Denver. You may be asking yourselves, Caleb and J, where did you get $240? Wait, scratch that. You are obviously asking why we drove that far South. The easy answer is that J is stupid. He needed to go to H Mart which is a huge Korean grocery store in South Denver. I can only assume that the "H" stands for "Fucking Hard For J To Remember Where It Is" because we drove around aimlessly for a fortnight or so before wisely deciding that this place would be easier to find after we had several more samplers of beer. So we went to Lone Tree Brewery. As J pointed out, there was a small forest outside of the "Lone Tree" establishment. My theory is that they named their brewery after a loner tree. A tree that refused to play by any of the normal tree rules. A tree named Johnny that smoked cigarettes and wore a black leather jacket and probably died when he crashed his chopper on dead mans curve. After several minutes of bashing the brewery for their name, we decided it may be a good idea to actually try their beer. I'm glad we did, even though their business model is obviously flawed in that there were no stickers. As J pointed out, we were helped by friendly staff that seemed interested in what we were doing. They made available free popcorn and chex mix which, as a fat guy, I was needing after our H Mart fiasco. We also met the head brewer named Jason who I assume got his ability to brew beer from his amazing beard. Much like Sampson in the bible got his strength from his hair. To boot, he recommended many other breweries in Colorado. He was so cool that we did not have the heart to tell him that we are going to hit all of them so suggestions on where to go were not really needed.
To make this review easier to read, I will refer to my friend and blogging partner as "J" (and in one case as "that fucker") and will refer to the head brewer of Lone Tree as "Jason"

The six Lone beers I tried

Black IPA 6.6% ABV
As you may have guessed using your keen detection skills, this was a really dark IPA. The smell had a nice floral hoppyness to it and not the "Oh god my taste buds are about to be assaulted" hops smell that some IPAs have. The flavor was clean and it was a surprisingly easy drinker for the whopping 80 Bitters that it had. This is what I mean when I say that there should be more to the flavor of an IPA than cramming as many hops into a beer as it will take before turning radioactive. Not the best IPA ever, but a solid one.

Rating: 7/10

Ariadne's Blonde 5.7% ABV
This was a nice clear blonde that was very easy to drink. Some very subtle bitterness to it but it was balanced very well. A nice clean finish and it tasted super extra double good with some chex mix thrown in after. I could drink this rapidly on a summer afternoon. One of the better blondes I have had... outside of my wife amIrite?

Rating: 8/10

Mountain Mammas Helles
For some reason, every time I hear the term "Mountain Mamma" (which is admittedly not that often) I think of Kathy Bates in Misery. Not exactly what you want to be thinking of when you are about to have a beer. I half expected her to run out calling me a dirty bird and hit me in the leg with a hammer. These are thoughts I normally save for my "alone time". What? Oh, right! The Beer! The beer was cloudy in taste in an unfiltered wheat sort of way. The flavor was a bit muddled though. I assume that Jason had trimmed his all powerful beard the morning that he made this one because it was the only beer I did not really care for.

Rating: 5/10

Toots oatmeal Stout 5.2% ABV
Did J already make a fart joke about this one? He did? Fuck. I really gotta start writing my reviews first again, that fucker is taking all the obvious and easily writable jokes. This was a very good beer. Hell, they could have named this beer "Sharts Oatmeal Stout" and it would still be on my list to buy... now that I think of it, I would actually be even more apt to buy that beer. It has a very smooth roasted caramel and subtle chocolate flavor to it that does not overwhelm you. The best oatmeal stout I have had as of yet.

Rating: 9/10

(Sigh) My Cherry Amour. Seemingly to 985th name pun beer.
Despite my hatred of name pun beers, I ordered this one. Why? So I can get an easy blog post out of it obviously. In case you have not noticed, my skills at tearing something down far exceed my ability to build something up. But, in a blatant attempt to derail my easy blog post, this beer was actually pretty good. The flavor of cherries was both a little sweet and a little sour. It reminded me a bit of the Transatlantic Kriek that New Belgium put out several years ago. It was not quite as tasty, but definitely enjoyable. A bit too acidic, but I finished the sample quickly.

Rating: 7/10

Hop Tree Double IPA 8% ABV
As J said, we were given this beer by Jason because he was as proud of this beer as J's dad was when J learned to not shit the bed at age 24. I actually went in preparing to lie to Jason because I rarely am a big fan of IPAs and he had been so cool to us that I did not want to break his heart and tell him his baby tasted like fresh cat urine. The lie was not needed though. Despite the very hoppy smell, it was really easy to drink and the hops did not overwhelm the flavor. It had a great amount of carbonation to it , a factor I am starting to pay more and more attention to.

Rating: 8/10

So that does it for Lone Tree Brewery. We had a lot of fun at this one and will totally make a point to go back and visit our new bearded friend. After our sampling, I got the bright idea to simply ask my phone where the god damned H Mart was. It led us directly to the store and J was finally able to pick up his large container of this
Yummy! Sooo worth the extended drive! After wading through the mass of people at the store, we had a lovely evening at Mike and Sabra Woodcock's house for dinner. I will try and keep everyone updated on where we will be going next. As always, thanks for reading. Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.