Crooked Stave IPA American India Pale Ale, Denver, Colorado

Date:  December 1, 2018

The Story— Crooked Stave is one of the hottest breweries in the states.  The “staves” imply a barrel conditioning program which indeed they have.  We’ve found some of their sours and wild beers, um, challenging.   But there’s nothing but nice from this distinctive American IPA.

The Beer—Interesting New England meets Denver for a tangy taste but with a dry and creamy chalky body (think milk of magnesia without the taste). It’s herbal fruity with some late bitter but more aroma than flavor.   I shouldn’t like this as much as I do — go figger why it appeals so much.

Value —  Good.  Maybe very good depending on where you get it.

This week we’ve been focusin on the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Tomorrow we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Some of the great beers we’ve found in our European travels.   A few may be some of the surprisingly good beer we’ve found in “bad beer cities”  as we researched our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds in the following week.

COMING IN DECEMBER:   THE TEN BEST IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS.  We count down to the New Year by thinking back of some of the greatest beers we’ve found in the last five years of hunting.   These beers are in our top 0.2% of the beers we’ve tasted recently.   

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.