Colorado’s craft breweries are always trying something new, partly because it’s fun to experiment and innovate, and partly because that’s what consumers have come to expect. This year has already seen plenty of twists and turns when it comes to beer recipes, but there are more on the way.
One of those is Left Hand Brewing’s Belgian White Nitro, which debuted on tap at the brewery’s two taprooms and in a few bars and restaurants. It will hit store shelves this fall.
Over the past dozen or so years, Left Hand, founded in 1993, has remade itself into a brewery that focuses on stouts and nitro beers. The latter is a result of its own research into how to package beers with nitrogen gas rather than carbon dioxide (Co2) in order to give the liquid inside a creamier head and bubbles that cascade up from the bottom, similar to a Guinness.
So, Belgian White Nitro continues a long string of new, and sometimes interesting, nitro options. Many are stouts (which is the traditional style to serve on nitro), while others have veered wildly from the course, like Flamingo Dreams, a blonde ale with raspberries and blackcurrants.
“When developing a new brand for a nitro beer, we start by brainstorming ideas for beers that we believe would work well on nitro. Those tend to be styles that are enhanced by a smooth and silky mouthfeel,” said Left Hand head brewer Gary Glass in an e-mail. “In the case of White Nitro, a Belgian-style wit was our top pick for a style to test for development.”
The “herbal” coriander spice and “zesty” orange citrus was a hit after the first test batch, so Left Hand brewed two more test batches on its small pilot system to dial in the process, Glass added, before scaling up the recipe to a 60-barrel brew on the production system.
Here’s a description of Belgian White Nitro and five other new beers to look forward to this year.
Belgian White Nitro takes a classic recipe for Belgian-style wit beers, which are brewed with coriander and orange peel (see Blue Moon), and turns it on its head — literally. That’s because Left Hand’s Nitro beers are supposed to be poured hard, with the bottle turned completely upside down in order to induce the creamy feel and cascading bubbles. This 4.8% ABV beer is already on tap at the brewery’s locations in Longmont in Denver, and will debut in bottled six-packs this fall.
Morale Boost isn’t a new beer for Copper Kettle Brewing in Denver, but the 5% IPA is getting an entirely new look. In fact, all of the brewery’s labels are changing this year with a complete brand refresh that uses cartoon copper kettles. “It’s been 12 years and we thought it was time to shake things up,” the company said in a Facebook post. “While our logo isn’t technically changing, our visual identity and brand look are. Our graphic designer, Anna, has been working very hard to redesign the way Copper Kettle looks and portrays itself in the market.”
It’s hard to believe that Aurora’s Dry Dock Brewing hasn’t already released a canned pumpkin version of this beer since Bligh’s Barleywine Ale is one of its oldest and most respected beers and because pumpkin spice is one of the brewery’s favorite ingredients (its fall pumpkin beers are the center of annual party). This is the year, though, and the high-alcohol brew has been aged for more than 12 months in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels to give it a rich and seasonal flavor.
Cold IPAs, a substyle of beer that is a cross between a hoppy IPA and a crisper lager, became popular in 2022 when breweries across the country began experimenting by combining lager yeast, higher-temperature fermentation and dry-hopping imbue a clean look and mouthfeel, but with a hoppy zing. This new version from Denver’s Crooked Stave was dry-hopped with a pair of New Zealand-grown hops to lend it a tropical flavor without a lot of bitterness.
The only thing better than Ska Brewing’s flagship IPA, Modus Hoperandi, is more Modus. That’s the thinking behind this amped-up version of the Durango brewery’s flagship hoppy ale. Skanking in at a whopping 9% ABV, Double Modus DIPA includes many of the same hops as the original, but it comes in a 16-oz. can rather than the classic 12-oz. vessels.
And speaking of double IPAs, Upslope Brewing in Boulder has also decided to pump up the power behind its classic and year-round West Coast Style IPA by knocking out a bigger, badder version that will only be available for a limited time in 19.2-ounce cans. Double West Coast Style IPA is “dripping with aromas of Douglas fir, ripe citrus fruit, and firm bitterness,” the brewery said, and comes in a hefty 9% ABV.
