Lone Tree Brewing Company (Jason's Take)

Location: 8200 Park Meadows Drive #8222  Lone Tree, CO

Website: lonetreebrewingco.com

The Story:  Look at that tasting room. Resting nobly in the shade of a single tree, the neon beckoning to us like the wine dark sea did to Odysseus. Until we rotated our heads a mere 5 degrees and spotted this:

As Caleb is demonstrating above, there is CLEARLY more than one tree here. There are at least three visible in this picture alone! Lord knows how many you will see If you were to turn the other way. I didn't try it because I have that weird disease where I can only turn one direction...what's that called? Oh yeah, only having one leg. This very obvious oversight in the naming/space acquiring process was already nagging at me as we entered the tasting room. Then, upon ordering our beers, we were informed that there were NO STICKERS to be had! Not that they ran out, but that they weren't in yet! Shenanigans, I say! For these two problems alone, I deducted four points from the brewery even before tasting the beer. Long time readers will know that we do not rate the breweries themselves on any sort of point scale, and so the deduction was largely ceremonial, but the intention was there. You hear that, Lone Tree? You're on notice!

So, we sat down, ordered our sampler from the following menu:

And set about drinkin and eating the free Chex mix (for which I awarded Lone Tree 3 points. That puts them down by one, for those keeping score). However, before the first sweet, sweet beery nectar touched our nearly virgin lips (or, in Caleb's case, not at all virgin lips), we met this gentleman:

I know what you're thinkin, but that's not Hagrid and he has NOT let himself go after the final movie. This is Jason (no, not me), and he's head brewer at Lone Tree. We sat and discussed beer and breweries with him the entire tasting. This guy is all the reason we got into doing this blog wrapped together. He's passionate about making good beers and having people drink the beer he makes. He obviously loves what he does and I thought it showed a lot in the beer that we drank. He was a super cool guy and really knew his beer. It made me want to like the beers more and I saw some (including the IPA) in a new light. He also had a great sense of humor, which is vital when trying to confront Caleb on any topic under the sun.

In talking with Jason, we found out that Lone Tree is a fairly new brewery. Jason's just about to quit his other job as a high school German teacher (I know, poor guy), to brew full time. Ya vol! The downside of being the new kid in town is that Lone Tree isn't bottling or canning yet. You can only get it in growlers at the tasting room or on tap at several places in South Denver. If you're down there, stop in and say you saw them here! They won't give you a sticker or anything, but at least they'll know who to blame when all the ruffians show up.

Because we were so involved in talking about beer, we forgot to take a picture of our samplers before we started drinking, so here's a picture that we threw together of some of the beer. It's not numbered because it's a sham. A sham, I tells ya!

With the catharsis of truth past me, I will now move on to the most important part of this blog:

The Beers:
Price: five 6 oz samplers of your choice for $8.

1. Ariadne's Blonde (5.7% ABV)
This one had a serious honey-like smell to it. It was a little sour at first, but that sourness blended well with the honey sweetness and a light bitterness to round it out. It had a full, grainy mouth feel to it that made the whole thing smooth and pleasant. Overall, it was a very solid blonde.

Rating: 8/10

2. Mountain Mama Helles (5.3% ABV)
This was certainly beer. It looks like beer, it tastes like beer, it even quacks like beer. Wait...that's not right. This was a fully, mealy beer that defies description. Seriously, just try to describe it. I'll wait. See? Couldn't do it, could you? The best I could do here was to say that it was a little malty, a little hoppy, but a good, drinkable beer.

Rating: 7/10

3. Toot's Full-Bodied Oatmeal Stout (5.2% ABV)
Ha ha! Toot! HA! Despite being named after a hilarious bodily process, this beer smelled and tasted nothing like used beans, thank goodness. In fact, it had a strong cinnamon and coffee nose to it, somewhat like a very strong cappuccino. But on drinking it...holy mother of shit! From the first sip, this beer is absolutely fantastic. It's malty, smoky, dark and amazing. I can't recommend this beer highly enough. LBT certainly has a beer they can "toot" their own horn about. See what I did there? Pretend you didn't, because I'm kind of ashamed of it.

Rating: 10/10

4. Puddle Jumper Pale Ale (5.7%)
Hoppy and sour. Too much of both. It was like a cat ate a grapefruit. I didn't find this one drinkable.

Rating: 1/10

5. Black IPA (6.6% ABV)
I got to thinking about this beer a couple days ago. It's a black pale ale. It's black, but a pale ale. Is it a regular pale ale in blackface, which is offensive? Is it the Michael Jackson of beers, which is also kind of offensive? Or is it something else? Some mysterious fourth dimension type beer that should only be served in a Klein bottle? (Here, I looked it up for you) I'm not sure of the answer to any of these questions except the first, which is "No, because that's offensive". This one had a much smoother start than I've grown to bracing myself for in an IPA, but the bitterness slowly ramps up as you swallow, ending in a strong bitterness. As you can see from the menu above, this bad boy has an 80 IBU rating, so you can guess at how bitter it gets (80. It gets 80 bitter). It doesn't kill with the bitterness, and it gets evenly spaced out, but it certainly crossed my threshold. I think regular IPA drinkers would like this beer, but it was a little too much for me.

Rating: 3/10

6. Hop Tree Double IPA (8% ABV)
I didn't originally order this one, but Jason was super proud of it, and insisted that we try it. Honestly, I think you would expect me to avoid anything labelled as "Double IPA" with an IBU of 80. (That's 80 bitter!) But I was willing to give it a shot. Shockingly, I rather enjoyed this one. It was bitter, granted, but there was also a nice balance there to go with the bitter. It was a little fuller than a normal IPA with a great citrus undertone to it. I really think I would drink this one if I were in the mood for an IPA, or hanging around IPA drinkers, or on a slow boat to India.

Rating: 7/10 (Which is great for an IPA from me)

7. Root Beer (0% ABV)
If there's root beer at a brewery, I'm gonna try it. I likes me some root beer, and I usually like it more at breweries (except Coopersmith's, their rootbeer tastes like a glass of licorice) . The rootbeer at LTB was very traditional. Think a Barq's or a Mugg flavoring without the syrupy sweetness. It had the mint, sasparilla and anise flavors that are expected in a root beer, and a very reasonable sweetness. It had a clean flavor and light finish.

Rating: 8/10

So that's that for Lone Tree Brewing Co. I really do encourage people to stop in there when they're in south Denver. The people alone make it worth the trip, but the beers are icing on the cake. They're also mixed metaphors.