y o u r
g u i d e t o
w h at ’ s
g r e at i n b o u l d e r
2020
Discover options and flexibility to help you stay on track. Own your journey.
Cruise into Hazel’s for super low prices everyday
303-449-0011
SUSAN FRANCE
boulder
Reader, welcome to Boulder.
STAFF Publisher, Fran Zankowski Special Editions Editor, Michael J. Casey Circulation Manager, Cal Winn
9 ......... Essential Businesses Hazel’s Beverage World
EDITORIAL
Editor, Matt Cortina Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett
11 ....... Essential Businesses Lucky’s Market
PRODUCTION
13 .......
Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer
Japango
15....... Essential Businesses
SALES AND MARKETING
Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar
McGuckin Hardware
16 ....... Always in season
Locally packaged goods at Boulder County Farmers Markets are worth finding throughout the year
GENERAL
Insider is a special issue of Boulder Weekly, which is available every Thursday throughout the county.
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the Davidson Mesa Head east for an unparalleled view of Boulder
24 ...... Beer first. The rest
will follow. Three decades of innovation and experimentation at Avery Brewing Co.
29 ...... Higher than the rest
14er Boulder transitions to online sales, without sacrificing customer service
32 ...... One last thing... Boulder Public Library
sider
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Circulation Team, Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer
BOULDER WEEKLY
Essential Businesses
21 ....... Trail running
303.494.5511 690 S. Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO 80305
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BEST CRAFT BREWERY
TAP ROOM & RESTAURANT - SEASONALLY SELECTED & LOCALLY SOURCED DISHES - 30 TAPS OF YEAR ROUND BEERS & TAP ROOM RARITIES - SERVED UP WITH APPRECIATION AND LOVE
SUSAN FRANCE
Essential Businesses
BOULDER WEEKLY
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THE TASTING BAR MAY BE CLOSED, but Hazel’s Beverage World isn’t. Even when things got darkest, Hazel’s scrubbed, sanitized and stocked to help get us through. Sure, you can buy your beer from the grocery store, but if it’s wine and spirits you crave, then Hazel’s has the answer. Rows and rows and rows of the stuff — 15,000 different products by its estimation. We tried counting, once, but got distracted by a colorful bottle of Vinho Verde and gave up. Maybe next time. The Vinho Verde, by the way, was delicious. Light, fruity and slightly sweet and went beautifully with sushi. INSIDER ’20
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Join us for “Social D” sushi, drinks & more in our dining room and extended patios. Reserve today at boulderjapango.com Not venturing out yet? You can still get your Japango favorites. Order for delivery or call us to order for curbside pickup* U B E R E AT S | D O O R DA S H | G R U B H U B
Daily: 11am–10pm +1 303 938 0330 boulderjapango.com *Sake, beer, wine & cocktails available for curbside pickup with valid ID.
Visit website for upcoming shows
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Essential
SUSAN FRANCE
Businesses
THERE’S BEEN AN AWFUL LOT OF INK SPILLED, not to mention Facebook rants from your Aunt Eileen, over what is and what-is-most-certainly-not an “essential” business. We’ll leave the argument for another day because no one, and we mean no one, even considered grocery stores a non-essential business. We’ve always had a soft spot for markets around here, but in the sixweek shutdown, Lucky’s Market became our lifeline. Not only did these folks replenish our bellies, but they also managed to keep us healthy and focused on coming out of this pandemic better than when we went in.
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And Lucky’s Market knows a thing or two about weathering a storm: The local grocery chain had a tough go it these past 12 months. But it’s hanging in there, and its flagship location at 3960 Broadway is still the place to go to experience all things Boulder, from eating local to living clean. And if Lucky’s humorous ad copy doesn’t put a smile on your face, the employees will. They’ll even show you just how sexy veggies can be, and how easy it is to eat gluten-free. What’s more Boulder than that? INSIDER ’20
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GROW YOUR FUTURE WITH ESCOFFIER Sustainability-Centered Culinary Education
www.escoffier.edu | (303) 494-7988
SUSAN FRANCE
Essential Businesses
BOULDER WEEKLY
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THE 2020 SHUTDOWN HIT A LOT OF RESTAURANTS HARD, and not just because new restrictions and the sudden loss of revenue made business almost impossible. Many restaurants lacked the creativity and adaptability to adjust to the new normal. Thankfully, Japango proved that a pivot from high-class dine-in to take-away service wasn’t just possible; it could be enjoyable. Japango’s massive curbside pickup sushi platter is a thing of pleasure, the kind that reminds you that sitting on your living room floor in front of the TV — because you had to convert the dining room table into a makeshift office — isn’t the end of the world. Japango has been a Boulder staple since 1999; may they never fade away. INSIDER ’20
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Keep Niwot Strong Challenge In Niwot and all of our local towns and cities we are challenging all of our residents to think before they buy:
Can I get this locally?
Top items to buy local
Dollars spent right now in our local businesses will mean we have a thriving downtown when things open up more fully again.
Here’s just a short list what you can get on a quick trip to downtown Niwot - make sure you buy local and help Keep Niwot Strong!
Local businesses organize community events, sponsor your kids’ sports teams and help make our town somewhere to be proud of.
Great organic local produce and groceries Homewares Gifts Apparel
Accessories Autos Vintage items and antiques Bikes
Jewelry
Wellness and esthetic services
Books
Vitamins and supplements
Coffee or meals at a great restaurant - with lots of outdoor seating options
Gift cards for Grads and Teacher Appreciation
Pet supplies
Equipment rental
F O R M O R E D E T A I L S A N D A M A P O F D O W N T O W N V I S I T N I W O T. C O M
Essential Businesses
SUSAN FRANCE
WHEN LLEWELLYN COMMODORE “BILL” MCGUCKIN opened his namesake hardware store in 1955, he staked his claim on personalized service, selection and first-hand experience. Not bad tenets for any business, but in a pandemic? Essential. All of those projects you’d been putting off and all of those remodeling and redecoration ideas you gleaned from HGTV suddenly came to a head as you watched those four walls slowly close in on you. And with over 60,000 square feet of store and almost 200,000 items on hand, McGuckin Hardware likely had (and still has) everything necessary to get things done in your home. McGuckin even extended its weekday hours for maximum accessibility.
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COURTESY BCFM
Always in season
Locally packaged goods at Boulder County Farmers Markets are worth finding throughout the year
by Matt Cortina
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f you’ve been to one of Boulder County Farmers Markets (BCFM) weekend or weeknight events, you’ve likely had the opportunity to taste several items from locally packaged food producers. But, with the pandemic, tastings went away, even though they were a critical way local food companies taste-tested, earned revenue, built their businesses and fostered a relationship with the community. “Many of them rely on sampling to sell product, which makes sense,” BCFM Executive Director Brian Coppom says. “If your customers are not familiar with the product, a sample can answer so many questions you have about quality and whether you’re going to eat it after you get home and whether your children are going to eat it.
“Organizations that don’t have a lot of brand recognition at the Market, they can start to develop loyal customers,” Coppom continues. “They can get feedback from customers on what works and what doesn’t. They can start to dial in pricing and see how people value their product. They can get research that will help them drive their business forward and they can get paid doing it.” These packaged food makers serve a vital role in the local food ecosystem — though many use nuts, salts, oils and other ingredients that come from other places (out of necessity) the fact that they’re helping grow Boulder’s natural foods industry can’t be lost.
“These food artisans, these entrepreneurs … are creating variety and discovery and creating interest with the customer base,” Coppom says. “That helps keep interest in customers coming for the vegetables — and they do primarily come of for vegetables. It enhances the experience of the market.” Best of all, you can get these foods throughout the year, either in retail stores or from the companies themselves via their websites. Here are a few to check out, but go to bcfm.org/our-vendors to see the full list. See BCFM on PAGE 18
COURTESY BCFM
Always in season
Locally packaged goods at Boulder County Farmers Markets are worth finding throughout the year
by Matt Cortina
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f you’ve been to one of Boulder County Farmers Markets (BCFM) weekend or weeknight events, you’ve likely had the opportunity to taste several items from locally packaged food producers. But, with the pandemic, tastings went away, even though they were a critical way local food companies taste-tested, earned revenue, built their businesses and fostered a relationship with the community. “Many of them rely on sampling to sell product, which makes sense,” BCFM Executive Director Brian Coppom says. “If your customers are not familiar with the product, a sample can answer so many questions you have about quality and whether you’re going to eat it after you get home and whether your children are going to eat it.
“Organizations that don’t have a lot of brand recognition at the Market, they can start to develop loyal customers,” Coppom continues. “They can get feedback from customers on what works and what doesn’t. They can start to dial in pricing and see how people value their product. They can get research that will help them drive their business forward and they can get paid doing it.” These packaged food makers serve a vital role in the local food ecosystem — though many use nuts, salts, oils and other ingredients that come from other places (out of necessity) the fact that they’re helping grow Boulder’s natural foods industry can’t be lost.
“These food artisans, these entrepreneurs … are creating variety and discovery and creating interest with the customer base,” Coppom says. “That helps keep interest in customers coming for the vegetables — and they do primarily come of for vegetables. It enhances the experience of the market.” Best of all, you can get these foods throughout the year, either in retail stores or from the companies themselves via their websites. Here are a few to check out, but go to bcfm.org/our-vendors to see the full list. See BCFM on PAGE 18
always in season BCFM from PAGE 17
BCFM
GREEN BELLY FOODS
The unique and delicious sauces from Green Belly Foods were inspired by the traditional, homemade Guatemalan hot sauces of owner Juan Ignacio Stewart’s mother. “Green Belly” is herbaceous, “Red Belly” is smoky and “Yellow Belly” is fruity. Time to up your hot sauce game. greenbellyfoods.com
CARMEN’S SALSA BCFM
PASTIFICIO BOULDER
Claudia Bouvier and Ted Steen co-founded Pastificio Boulder in 2018, and we’ve been thankful ever since. The hand-crafted pastas are made from heritage and organic wheats milled by hand into whole grain flour. Spaghetti, ravioli, manicotti, campanelle — Pastificio has it. pastificioboulder.com
CARMEN’S SALSA
Six years ago, Carmen Pacheco-Borden left her fulltime job lecturing on engineering at CU-Boulder to follow a passion: molé. That decision has led to a Farmers Market favorite: Carmen’s Salsa. Based on traditional recipes from around Mexico, these sauces will illuminate your meals: roasted tomatillo, roasted tomato, adobe and a classic Oaxacan molé are available to take home. carmenssalsa.com ASHTON RAY HANSEN
FORTUNA CHOCOLATE
Fortuna crafts unbelievably satisfying chocolate variations using MexicXn heirloom cacao. The company is commited to sourcing only from sustainable, biodiverse farms. Try chocolates with various percentages of cacao, from 65-100%, as well as milk, white, spiced and flavored varieties. This is chocolate in its purest form. fortuna-chocolate.com
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TABLE MOUNTAIN FARM
TABLE MOUNTAIN FARM
Since creating her first goat milk caramel sauce in 2012, Amanda Adare (owner of the 12-acre Table Mountain Farm outside Boulder), has since grown her creation into a business. A line of goat milk caramel sauces in vanilla bean, cinnamon vanilla, salted dark chocolate and whiskey varieties is available year-round. tablemountainfarm.com ASHTON RAY HANSEN
BOLDER CHIP COMPANY
You haven’t had a chip like those crafted by Stefan Gomez’ Bolder Chips. Gomez has taken recipes from his native Tijuana and married them with local ingredients, creating a small company that sells chips, tortillas and more. Start with the blue corn chips but move on to the yellow corn, blue corn and sourdough tortillas. You’ll be hooked. bolderchips.com
BCFM
HEALTHY HARVEST
Though we unfortunately can’t grow olives in Boulder County, we appreciate the local artisans that are sourcing the best of them from around the world. It helps grow our local food system, and the quality is unparalleled. Healthy Harvest has infused, Tuscan and Greek olive oils, jars of unique olive varieties, olive-based skincare products and much more. healthyharvests.com
BCFM
OUTRAGEOUS BAKING
If you’ve bitten into an Outrageous Baking quick bread without knowing anything about the company, you’ll swear it’s got a ton of butter, gluten and other tasty but perhaps undesirable ingredients in it. But you’d be wrong, fooled by the moist, flavor-forward treats Pamela Fletcher creates. Try the chocolate zucchini bread, pumpkin chocolate chip bread and cinnamon coffee cake and you’ll see what we mean. outrageousbaking. com
BOULDER WEEKLY
BEST ONE YET VEGAN
ASHTON RAY HANSEN
Ice cream is a treat, but for too long it wasn’t for those with dietary restrictions. Luckily the plant-based ice cream movement happened and it happened, thankfully, in Boulder. Helen Williams creates terrific vegan ice cream, with an eye on amplifying local flavors when possible. You’ll want to try Cookie Dough Dream, Peanut Butter Brownie and It’s My Birthday Cake. bestoneyetvegan.com
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Trail running the Davidson Mesa
Head east for an unparalleled view of Boulder
by Sarah Tuff Dunn
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SARAH TUFF DUNN
THERE’S SOMETHING SACRED about Davidson Mesa, where a 3.2-mile, mostly flat trail makes it a mecca for trail runners. Just before dawn, there is a magical few minutes where no head lamp is required but there is still a scattering of stars and a sliver of moon overhead. If you’re lucky, there are no cars in the parking lot and no dogs in the offleash area. It’s just you and the sound of your feet smoothly scraping the trail as you set off toward the Flatirons.
THE FLATIRONS SEEM to change with every moment on the Mesa — retreating, advancing, changing colors from gold to copper and silver. While they’re breathtaking up close, the five distinct formations are even more aweinspiring from a distance, as your legs and lungs are pumping up the gently rising hills, and you begin to see the light of day. See DAVIDSON on PAGE 22 BOULDER WEEKLY
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DAVIDSON from PAGE 21
PRAIRIE DOGS STAR IN THE Davidson Mesa wildlife show — scurrying, chirping and scrambling in and out of their holes. In the morning, magpies dart in and out of the tall grass, too. It smells alive out here, touched with sage and the odor of horses stabled in the Spanish Hills neighborhood. Your isolation in nature is only disturbed by the passing of other people out exercising.
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THE AUTHOR, hard at work, trail running toward the sight of 14,259-foot Longs Peak.
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EVEN TELEPHONE poles seem majestic on the Mesa, which lures Boulderites from sunrise to sunset. Teenagers are filming themselves spinning in circles. Friends are running side-byside, talking about their plans for a summery Saturday. Families stop to admire the views of downtown Boulder, Lafayette, Lyons, Erie and Denver: a 360-degree panoramic of Colorado life, rural and urban. It’s different now, with the masks and the social distancing, but eyes are still smiling.
SLINKING ALONGSIDE the Davidson Mesa is U.S. Highway 36, the main corridor between Denver and Boulder. As a trail runner, you see the ebb and flow of traffic throughout the day. Commuters, tourists, truck drivers all making their way to an unknown destination. But after a loop (or two or three or four) your stopping point is back at the trailhead, taking in the glow of this gorgeous place.
THREE THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO 1) It’s impossible to get lost on this trail. 2) Harper Lake (across McCaslin Boulevard) is also a terrific trail run: one mile around, with no dogs. 3) Parking is limited; find additional spots at Harper Lake.
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PHOTOS COURTESY AVERY BREWING CO.
Beer first. The rest will follow. by Michael J. Casey
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dam Avery had no interest in being a lawyer. It was as simple as that. “There’s no way you’re going to enjoy this,” his friends told him. So, he quit. Now what? He loved rock climbing, and he loved homebrewing, but surely there wasn’t much of a future in either, was there? It was the early 1990s, and the scene looked a little different. Boulder was shaggier then, and the brewing industry could barely even be called that. The first brewery in the county, Boulder Brewing Company, was started in a goat shed northwest of Longmont by two University of Colorado Boulder professors back in 1979. Five years later, and renamed Boulder Beer Company, it relocated to a castle-like structure on the east side of town and went through a rollercoaster of ups and downs. More than once, it looked like it was going to close up shop, but the brewery managed to make it to 1990; that’s when Frank and Gina Day came knocking. That same year, the Days partnered with Thomas A. Moxcey to open the Walnut Brewery, Boulder’s first brewpub. The following year, the Walnut’s general manager, George Hanna, left to open the Oasis Brewer Pub on Canyon Boulevard. And a little over a year after that, Gordon Knight, a Vietnam vet with a purple heart, opened High Country Brewery on Arapahoe Avenue. That was it. Then came the fifth: Avery Brewing Company, incorporated on Sept. 1, 1993, in a 2,000-square-foot warehouse on Arapahoe Avenue nicknamed “The Alley.” Fast-forward 27 years and Avery Brewing is but one of 22 breweries, brewpubs and taprooms that call Boulder home. And not only is Avery Brewing the largest of the bunch — producing nearly 55,000 barrels of beer a year — it’s the last one standing from those first five: Boulder Beer closed on Jan. 18, 2020; the Walnut on June 4, 2017; Oasis on March 1, 2002; and Knight moved High Country to Estes Park in 1994 and changed the name to Estes Park Brewing. It takes more than good business sense to survive three decades in the brewing industry. It takes innovation, experimentation and the willingness to fall flat on your face. Avery’s done it all. From aggressive hopping to barrelaging, from beastly ales with ABVs soaring high into the double digits to easy sippers perfect for a pour on top of a peak, Avery Brewing has spent the last 27 years following one simple rule: “Beer first. The rest will follow.” ‘YOUR HOMEBREW’S PRETTY GOOD.’ Adam Avery was born in Macomb, Illinois, raised in Decatur and moved to Colorado in 1984. It didn’t take long for the mountains to work their magic, and Avery started climbing. Hobby led to profession, and Avery started working at Eastern Mountain Sports while studying for the LSATs. He passed and was accepted into the University of Denver’s See BEER on PAGE 26 24
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PHOTOS COURTESY AVERY BREWING CO.
Beer first. The rest will follow. by Michael J. Casey
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dam Avery had no interest in being a lawyer. It was as simple as that. “There’s no way you’re going to enjoy this,” his friends told him. So, he quit. Now what? He loved rock climbing, and he loved homebrewing, but surely there wasn’t much of a future in either, was there? It was the early 1990s, and the scene looked a little different. Boulder was shaggier then, and the brewing industry could barely even be called that. The first brewery in the county, Boulder Brewing Company, was started in a goat shed northwest of Longmont by two University of Colorado Boulder professors back in 1979. Five years later, and renamed Boulder Beer Company, it relocated to a castle-like structure on the east side of town and went through a rollercoaster of ups and downs. More than once, it looked like it was going to close up shop, but the brewery managed to make it to 1990; that’s when Frank and Gina Day came knocking. That same year, the Days partnered with Thomas A. Moxcey to open the Walnut Brewery, Boulder’s first brewpub. The following year, the Walnut’s general manager, George Hanna, left to open the Oasis Brewer Pub on Canyon Boulevard. And a little over a year after that, Gordon Knight, a Vietnam vet with a purple heart, opened High Country Brewery on Arapahoe Avenue. That was it. Then came the fifth: Avery Brewing Company, incorporated on Sept. 1, 1993, in a 2,000-square-foot warehouse on Arapahoe Avenue nicknamed “The Alley.” Fast-forward 27 years and Avery Brewing is but one of 22 breweries, brewpubs and taprooms that call Boulder home. And not only is Avery Brewing the largest of the bunch — producing nearly 55,000 barrels of beer a year — it’s the last one standing from those first five: Boulder Beer closed on Jan. 18, 2020; the Walnut on June 4, 2017; Oasis on March 1, 2002; and Knight moved High Country to Estes Park in 1994 and changed the name to Estes Park Brewing. It takes more than good business sense to survive three decades in the brewing industry. It takes innovation, experimentation and the willingness to fall flat on your face. Avery’s done it all. From aggressive hopping to barrelaging, from beastly ales with ABVs soaring high into the double digits to easy sippers perfect for a pour on top of a peak, Avery Brewing has spent the last 27 years following one simple rule: “Beer first. The rest will follow.” ‘YOUR HOMEBREW’S PRETTY GOOD.’ Adam Avery was born in Macomb, Illinois, raised in Decatur and moved to Colorado in 1984. It didn’t take long for the mountains to work their magic, and Avery started climbing. Hobby led to profession, and Avery started working at Eastern Mountain Sports while studying for the LSATs. He passed and was accepted into the University of Denver’s See BEER on PAGE 26 24
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See BEER on PAGE 25 Sturm Law School, but it didn’t seem right. His friends had started practicing and waved him off. But Avery knew he couldn’t work for Eastern Mountain Sports forever. What was a 27-year-old staring down the barrel of a quarter-life crisis to do? The answer came while at a Super Bowl party. His former manager brought some bottles of homebrew and gave one to Avery. It was a full-bodied brown ale, and it stirred up something in Avery’s mind. The next day, Avery went out and bought a homebrew kit. Avery was infatuated, and became the type of homebrewer who had “three batches going at once.” He was brewing so much, he gave beer away at his climbing site in Rifle to anyone who would take it. “At the same time, the spring of ’93, my Dad (Larry Avery) took early retirement,” Avery told Boulder Weekly in 2019. Larry was a runner, but in the early ’90s, Boulder wasn’t a running mecca. Boulder should have a proper running store, Larry resolved, and moved west to follow his bliss. But, finding a storefront for a running shop was easier said than done, and Larry’s business plan stalled. His son had a suggestion: Let’s start a brewery. He had passion and some investors; Larry had a business partner and some capital. “And we got started on $90,000,” Avery said. ‘A HOBBY GONE BERSERK.’ “It took about nine years to actually turn a profit,” Avery said. “It wasn’t like we were hemorrhaging cash, but there were three years where Dad and I didn’t pay ourselves.” Avery Brewing opened its doors in early ’94, right as the market was booming, but it took a while for the small family operation to find footing. Their initial lineup — RedPoint Ale, Out of Bounds Stout and Ellie’s Brown Ale — wasn’t catching on, despite Out of Bounds taking home gold at the ’94 Great American Beer Festival. “The beers at the time that were killing it were Fat Tire, 90 Shilling, Sawtooth,” Avery said. “Beers like that. ... Good-drinking beers.” Avery’s amber was a big amber, “more like an IPA,” in his estimation. Ten years later, a brewery couldn’t survive without an IPA on its tap list. But when Avery started selling his in ’96, bartenders couldn’t give it away. Bitter was not something beer drinkers in the mid-’90s wanted, and bartenders called up Avery and told him to come back and pick the kegs up. It almost sunk him. 26
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“It came to a point, do-or-die kind of thing,” Avery said. “We’re going to make a big monster beer that’s highly hopped, highly bitter, highly alcoholic.” Avery doubled down and staked the brewery’s future on a big, burly red ale loaded with hops. They named it Hog Heaven, after a bike race Larry came across while reading the paper. It took off like a rocket. One big beer led to another. Next came The Reverend, a Belgian-style quadrupel ale. Then Salvation: a Belgian-style golden ale. Along with Hog, the three formed Avery’s “Holy Trinity” of ales. “I wanted to do those big beers, and I wanted to experiment,” Avery said. “That was ‘my’ piece, of the craft industry.” Avery’s line of big beers caught fire and exploded production: From 3,000 barrels in 1999 to 15,000 barrels in 2009. Throughout those years, Avery found himself on the “tip of the spear” and he continued to push the brewery to try new things. “I ran the company for a long time as a hobby gone berserk,” Avery said. “And, literally, doing everything I wanted. And TOP: The early days then finding people who of brewing with the Avery family: Angie, were like-minded.” Larry and Adam with Andy Parker was one of his trusty chocolate the like-minded. A homelab, Elle. brewer since he was 19, Parker brewed his way BOTTOM: Three of across the country and the “Brett Pack” in back. Parker joined Avery in Belgium: Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo 2002, and one year later and Avery stared a barrel program, back when the notion of barrel-aging a beer was a curiosity at best. Then, in 2004, came The Beast — the first installment of “The Demons of Ale” series — weighing in at a whopping 15% alcohol by volume. Mephistopheles’ Stout followed in 2005, and Samael’s Ale (a barleywine) concluded the triumvirate in 2006. Ten years prior, any beer north of 8% alcohol was considered “big.” By the mid-2000s, Avery had three pushing past 15%, a healthy roster of ales nipping at their heels, and a devout following of drinkers eager to explore what beer could be. “Beer is just a part of this artisanal movement,” Avery said. “I felt my job was to bring wine and spirits people into the beer fold. ... [P]roducing super flavor-forward beers that kind of hit the upper edge of what ‘beer’ should be.” INSIDER ’20
THE BRETT PACK BRINGS BELGIUM BACK In 2006, Sam Calagione of Delaware’s Dogfish Head Craft Brewery was at work on a book, Extreme Homebrewing: An Introduction to Brewing Craft Beer at Home, when it became clear that to understand extreme brewing, a trip was in order. “I knew this book would be incomplete without a pilgrimage to the motherland of extreme brewing,” Calagione wrote in The New Brewer. Eager to share the wealth, Calagione invited four close friends and like-minded brewers on his excursion to Belgium: Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey, Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing Company, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Company and Avery. The “Brett Pack” was off. Avery returned from the beer-soaked exploration with a thirst for sour. He started experimenting with a koelschip (pronounced “coolship,” a large shallow tub in which hot wort is cooled and spontaneously fermented with air-borne microorganisms), mimicking what he found at famed Brussels brewery Brasserie Cantillon, and using wine barrels inoculated with Brettanomyces yeast harvested from Drie Fonteinen. The experiments were paying off, but The Alley could no longer contain them. From the original 2,000 square feet Avery procured in 1993, the brewery had piecemealed the surrounding warehouse spaces throughout the years, finally capping out at 20,000 square feet. It was time to move. In September 2011, Avery submitted plans for a 72,000-square-foot brewery on five and a half acres of land in Gunbarrel. The facility would have everything Avery had on Arapahoe, just bigger and better: 67,000 square feet with exterior space allowing them to expand to 95,000. ‘ONE-HUNDRED-FOLD TECHNOLOGICAL JUMP.’ Avery Brewing’s sparkling new $30 million Gunbarrel brewery opened on Feb. 16, 2015, and ushered in a new era of brewing in Boulder. Sporting an 85-barrel brewhouse inside a state-of-the-art facility with four 720-barrel fermenters looming over the complex, Avery was now capable of producing 350,000 barrels of beer a year. As Avery explained, the technological leap from his kitchen as a homebrewer to a seven-barrel brewhouse in The Alley was enormous, but nothing like the leap to the facility in Gunbarrel: “One-hundred-fold technological jump,” he said. “Back in the alley, there was a lot of beer going down the drain.” Not anymore. In 2017, Avery hit a high-water mark with 63,250 barrels of beer. That same year, Avery sold a 30% stake in the brewery to Spain’s Mahou-San Miguel, and then another 40% in 2019 (Avery and Larry own the remaining 30%). The sales caused rumblings in the craft beer world and took Avery Brewing out of the Brewers Association’s “craft” category, but it also allowed the brewery to pay down its debt, focus on new beers and new beer styles, and further expand its distribution. Now you can find Avery beers in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Japan and Sweden. Three decades ago, Avery was giving away his homebrew in the trailhead parking lots of Rifle, Colorado. Today, that beer is served 5,000 miles away and ordered in a different language. Not too shabby for a guy who didn’t want to be a lawyer. I
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Hog Heaven Imperial Red IPA
White Rascal Belgian-style White Ale
RELEASED IN 1998, Hog Heaven was brewed with Columbus hops, 2-row barley and caramel malts, and didn’t fit any particular style at the time — it weighed in at 9.2% ABV and sported over 100 international bittering units. So, Avery put “dryhopped barleywine-style ale” on the label (today it’s called an imperial red IPA). “We talk about Hog [as] the beer that saved the brewery,” Avery said. “And it really was because it got us in with out-of-state distribution.” Avery recounts: Tomme Arthur of California’s Pizza Port Brewing was hosting a strong ale festival, featuring Hog. That’s when another brewer, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing in Escondido, discovered the beer. Koch was self-distributing and wanted to bring on other brands. Avery said yes. “If not the beer that turned it around, it was the mentality of how we should use our brewery to do what we want to do,” Avery said. And what Avery wanted to do was push the envelope. “Truly doing that,” Avery said. “Making beers for a very, very small and select group of people. Who, I believe, were looking for that sort of thing.”
IN 2003, AVERY introduced White Rascal, an unfiltered Belgian-style white ale in the tradition of 15th century Hoegaarden brewers. Today, it’s the brewery’s number-one seller. Brewed with 50% malted wheat, fermented with a commercially available Hoegaarden yeast strain and spiced with coriander and Curaçao orange peel, White Rascal is a crowd-pleasing easy-sipper, but it took a while to catch on with the style police. “While White Rascal sold well and helped fuel our growth, it wasn’t doing very well in the larger beer competitions,” Andy Parker, head of Avery’s barrel program, wrote in a brewery blog post. “The most frequent criticism was that it was a little heavier on the spices than a traditional Belgian White. That changed in 2012 when White Rascal won a silver at the Great American Beer Festival, then again in 2015. Over the years, American brewers had developed a number of excellent witbiers and the boundaries of the category expanded a little to embrace more intensity of flavor.”
Barrel Aged Series LAUNCHED ON JAN. 28, 2009, Avery’s Barrel Aged Series is, in essence, an anything-goes enterprise. And the brewery means anything: From Brettanomyces to prickly pear, pumpkin to malted milk balls, it chucked just about everything into these 12-oz. glass bottles. Its first, Brabant, was a wild ale aged for eight months in Zinfandel barrels, and featured a horse on the bottle — a nod to the Brettanomyces yeasts used, which contributed notes of “horse blanket.” Avery Brewing’s most recent release, Quinntiki, an imperial blonde ale aged in rum barrels with pineapple, coconut, orange and nutmeg, is a tip of the hat to Mr. Donn Beach of Don’s Beachcomber tiki bar fame. These are the beers the Avery faithful still queue up for on release day. In 2016, Avery Brewing produced 4,000 barrels of barrel-aged beer, a significant leap from 1,700 it made in 2015, and 10 times what they were making at The Alley.
Ales of Antiquity
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n September 2016, Avery Brewing’s resident “beer archeologist,” Travis Rupp, released the first in Avery’s newest line of beers: Ales of Antiquity. Rupp, who teaches Classics at CU-Boulder, traverses the globe and scours the texts of ancient civilizations for recipes to recreate their signature beers for modern-day drinkers. From Nestor’s Cup, an ancient Mycenaean-inspired beer brewed with 6-row barley, einkorn wheat, acorn flour, figs and elderberries, to Beersheba,
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a third-century Israeli/Jordanian ale brewed with 6-row barley, durum wheat, farro and pomegranate, and spontaneously fermented. Recently, Rupp has explored more contemporary ales with Monticello Ale — a barrel-fermented wheat ale brewed with persimmons — and 1752 India Pale Ale, brewed from a recipe many consider to be the first IPA and placed in an environment that mimicked the beer’s sea voyage from England to the British colonies of India.
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Higher than the rest
PHOTO BY @THESILENTAMBASSADOR
BOULDER WEEKLY
14er Boulder transitions to online sales, without sacrificing customer service by Will Brendza
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’ve never had a more seamless COVID-19 cannabis purchasing experience. I 14ER BOULDER, logged onto the sleek web2897 Mapleton site, found the two products Ave., Boulder, I was after and within moments, 303-539-6525 my phone chirped with a message 14erboulder.com from 14er Boulder: my order was ready and waiting for me. When I arrived at the storefront on Mapleton Avenue, I was in and out in only a matter of moments, gourmet local chocolate THC bars and gummy boxes in hand. It was fast — almost too fast. But that level of service is what’s required of businesses like 14er in times like these. “One of the hardest parts was losing the ability to talk with the customers about the bud,” Joe Wright, one of 14er Boulder’s co-owners, says. “It’s created some efficiencies, where we can handle more patients and more customers per day, due to the fact that everything is done online... But we’re definitely missing that interaction with our patients.” To make up for that loss, though, Wright and his team have invested a lot of time and effort into fine-tuning and streamlining the online ordering process. They needed to offer an alternative to the customer-budtender interactions of yore, without sacrificing their ability to share intimate knowledge of 14er’s bud and bud-products. So, they went back to basics, back to the roots of their weed, and tried to capture the essence of each strain on a webpage. The task, they say, wasn’t so easy. “We wanted a lot of the personality of the products and the nuances of the strains to come through the website,” Zach Shapiro, the art and marketing director for 14er, says. “We’re doing what we can to provide a digital kind of, ‘replacement experience.’” It’s an experience that will work until 14er can bring its customers and patients back into the store, to talk bud with the budtenders and get that full 14er Boulder experience. “There’s nothing like face-to-face, but you know, we’re working with what we got,” Shapiro says. 14er Boulder has been around since the early days of legal cannabis. It officially started in 2009 (back when bongs were still “water pipes”) as a strictly medicinal cannabis company. And it stayed a medicinal company for some time, even after recreational weed was legalized, in order to maintain its medicinal customers. “We had the opportunity to immediately switch over to recreational and convert our medical license,” Wright See 14ER on PAGE 30
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explains. “But we had such an affinity and such buzz for our medical patients, we delayed that in order to have a medical and recreational license.” 14er Boulder raises its boutique cannabis from seedling to sapling to flowering nugget; it designs custom packaging for every individual “house-strain”; it makes its own solvent-less, hydrocarGARRETT CREAMER bon-free concentrates and oils at its lab; it teams up with the best local partners to make its edible confections; and it tries to convey that level of crafted excellence, online. Which, I think it’s safe to say, 14er achieved. Browse the company’s virtual bud library, and you’ll find strains you won’t see anywhere else, accompanied by descriptions that sound like something GARRETT CREAMER out of a sommelier’s wine catalog. “This heavy indica is both hashy and earthy with a deep berry aroma. The hashy, berry flavor is instantly noticeable and lingers on the tongue for an extended period of time,” goes the description for the blackberry banana Kush, for example. “Every strain is so nuanced and affects people so differently, we really wanted to kind of embrace all the character each strain has to offer and describe the folklore behind them,” Shapiro says of the website. 14er has always pursued cannabis with this level of zeal for the plant and its medicinal qualities. It’s been fine-tuning its bud for years, and that comes through in the quality of its flower, concentrates and edibles. “The 14er Grow Crew has been creating and cultivating high quality differentiated genetics and flower for over a decade,” Wright says. “Besides our 14er team, our most critical input is the flower we grow.” The high-quality products 14er offers have been a
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huge selling point through COVID-19, Wright explains. “I think people are very conscious of the products that they’re putting in their body, with COVID being on the front of everyone’s mind,” Wright says. “So, having clean, solvent-less concentrates and, you know, hydrocarbon-free products are just a lot better for your lungs.” Wright also mentions that the company has seen a slight shift away from vapes, pre-rolls and other inhalant products, and an uptick in edible sales in recent months. With a respiratory illness like COVID-19 on the loose, people seem to have a higher interest in consumable cannabis, he says. Lucky for 14er customers, the company’s edibles are just as carefully crafted as the bud that goes into them. “We were extremely strategic and surgical about introducing a new edible and making sure that it’s something that the consumers really wanted,” Wright explains. “We didn’t have an edible for some time, and instead of just starting from scratch, we wanted to team up with somebody that had been doing edibles for years.” That’s why 14er reached out to the Colorado CBD edible company, KJL. The two companies worked together to create a blackberry pomegranate fruit chew (which they mindfully paired with 14er’s blackberry banana Kush terpenes and oil), and a Blood Orange Mango chew (paired with Tropicana terpenes and oil). “They’re very unique in that sense that they are actually strain-specific,” Wright explains. “They use our 14er flower and our 14er terpenes for the flavor profile.” The flavors of the terpenes and the fruit chew itself work in concert together, drowning out any residual cannabis taste. These edibles have the consistency of a Starburst and a tangy flavor that could stand alone as candy (even without the THC kick that comes with it). And 14er’s gourmet chocolate bars are every bit as good. For these, it chose to partner with a local gourmet confectionery chocolatier company, Fortuna Chocolate. Together they made a Milk Chocolate with Pistachio & Pepitas bar and a 70% Dark Maldon Chocolate with Sea Salt bar — both containing 100mgs of 2-to-1 CBD/THC, for maximum body buzz. Fortuna sources its ingredients from connections with small cacao farmers in rural Mexico, which convinced Wright it was the ideal partner for 14er’s edible chocolate bar. Plus, “[Fortuna] makes all their organic chocolate from scratch,” he adds. The result is dangerously delicious — both of these THC chocolate bars are masterpieces in confection, have no cannabis flavor, are strong, and melt in your mouth. The quality of 14er’s products, plus the attention to detail when it comes to marketing, reflects the quality of people who make up the 14er Boulder staff. The growers, the concentrate lab and the dispensary staff are all dedicated to the singular goal of making good cannabis products and getting them into the hands of those who need them. “They deserve a huge shoutout,” Wright says. It’s a level of commitment to cannabis that’s not easy to come by — and it’s what has defined 14er Boulder’s brand since it began 11 years ago, inspired by the mountain peaks it’s named after.
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SUSAN FRANCE
ONE LAST THING... LIBRARIES ARE THE CORNERSTONE of democracy, the centerpiece of a city, and Boulder’s Public Library on Canyon is a sight to behold. Originally built in 1906 and relocated to its present location along Boulder Creek in 1961, Boulder’s Main Library was updated in 2014 and has never looked better. Open and airy, BPL offers residents a quiet place to sit and read, study, research, meet with friends, sip a cup of coffee at Seeds Library Cafe, partake in an off-the-beaten-path movie in the Canyon Theater, or just sit and think quietly for a minute or two. A city is only as impressive as its library, and Boulder’s is no slouch.
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Best of Boulder
The doors to awesome are open. We’re committed to making your experience as safe as possible with new healthy practices in place. Increased cleaning All stores are professionally cleaned frequently and high-touch areas are disinfected regularly.
Face coverings Employees and customers are required to wear face coverings.
Book an appointment online. Visit xfinitystores.com to come chat with us at a time that’s convenient for you. Boulder Xfinity Retail Store 2900 E Baseline Rd., Boulder, CO 80303
For more information about Xfinity policies and terms of service, go to xfinity.com/policies. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. NPA231898-0031
Social distancing Stores are monitoring capacity and using floor markings for safer shopping.