Recap of the 2025 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest

The sights and sounds and smells, and tastes of Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest are a feast for the senses. In addition to the 300+ beers being poured, a formidable collection of local restaurants offer a smorgasbord of food along with planned and impromptu musical acts throughout the day scattered across the Paso Robles Event Center grounds. 

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Pour List Preview | Can’t-Miss Beers at the 2025 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest

This Saturday, May 31, marks the return of the darling of the beer festival calendar, Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest. World renowned for its collection of incredible breweries, amazing beers and inclusion of scrumptious food options, FWIBF is always a delightful treat hosted in the beautiful city of Paso Robles, California. 

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Knotted Root Brewing Plans The Circular Lounge Grand Opening

A small mountain town brewery is opening a big city outpost as Nederland, Colorado favorite Knotted Root Brewing is hosting their grand opening in Denver on Saturday, May 10. From the foothills to East Colfax, an hour drive away, this is certainly a big move for Knotted Root. But the unique eclectic vibe is maintained in the new space.

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2025 Collaboration Fest Recap

Another epic Collaboration Fest has come and gone, leaving us with memories of a great day spent with all our beer drinking friends. Nearly 2,000 attendees got to sample over 130 different beers crafted by a record 180+ breweries. Collaboration Fest continues to stand out amongst a crowded field of beer festivals for its brewer-centric feel. Colorado Brewers Guild Executive Director Shawnee Adelson explains it thusly: “We like to say that it is a brewers party that the public is invited to, and because of that it feels like a class reunion for many.”

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Milieu Fermentation Company | smol.

The Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer is a legendary beer festival and competition held annually in Chicago. Each year breweries from across the U.S. enter their barrel-aged creations for judging, hoping to earn a coveted medal in one of 13 categories. As expected from a competition highlighting barrel-aged beer, most entries are high ABV bruisers where a couple sips is all the flavor and alcohol a drinker could reasonably handle.

Milieu Fermentation Company of Aurora, Colorado, bucked the trend by entering smol., a 2.7% ABV barrel-aged mixed culture ale made in collaboration with Baere Brewing Company in neighboring Denver. For their effort, they were handsomely rewarded with a gold medal in the Wild Beer Mixed Culture (Acidic) category, a huge honor for a tiny beer. 

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Recapping the Best Beers from 2025 WeldWerks Invitational Festival

Despite much news to the contrary, the beer festival as we know it is not dead. While your mom and pop fest featuring a couple local breweries’ standard pours is indeed not doing well in the current climate, there is still room for a top notch festival featuring the best breweries and their best beers to thrive. To that latter end, the 2025 WeldWerks Invitational Festival was a roaring success. 

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Wiley Roots Brewing | Vanilla Pseudonym

Barrel-aged beer often takes inspiration from the spirit it uses, but rarely does that inspiration lead to the name of the beer and subsequent series of releases. Seeking to source barrels for an Imperial Stout back in 2017, Wiley Roots Brewing was drawn to utilizing a local distillery instead of a broker. They landed on Laws Whiskey House. “Knowing the quality of Laws and their products made it an easy choice, especially knowing they have a lot of intentionality about where their barrels go,” says Dave Frediani, head brewer at Wiley Roots. Laws began under a pseudonym, Gargoyle Enterprises, in its initial distilling phase to ensure they were creating a product that would eventually be worthy of the Laws name. This became the inspiration for the release of the original Pseudonym in 2018, which would morph into an entire -nym series (Acronym, Homonym, Autonym, and Anonym so far) and lead to the release of Vanilla Pseudonym 6+ years later. 

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Firestone Walker Announces 2025 Brewmaster’s Collective

Membership is open for Firestone Walker’s 2025 Brewmaster’s Collective, a legendary beer club that gives members access to exclusive brews that explore the depths of Firestone Walker’s lauded barrel aging program. “With the 2025 edition, the club is rounding into form with mindblowing collaborations and deep explorations into the art of barrel aging that will excite our most avid beer aficionados.” says Matt Brynildson, Brewmaster at Firestone Walker. 

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Table by New Image Brewing

Food at a brewery is often an afterthought. People go there for the beer being brewed, says common thinking, and then need something to eat – some type of nourishment should be offered. While this beer-first mentality makes sense for a business whose primary income is from beer, there exists the possibility to do things differently, giving a brewery’s food its moment to shine. Brandon Capps, founder of New Image Brewing, sought to redefine the taproom experience by transforming New Image’s Olde Town Arvada, Colorado location into Table, an approachable farm to table restaurant whose focus is all on the food and its quality ingredients. Brandon has “always been frustrated at why great food and great beer almost never seem to arrive side by side,” and he’s seeking to fix that flaw.

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Odell Brewing | Lincolns Lager

It’s no surprise that craft beer is expensive. Perhaps it has always been this way, especially compared to macro beer. The strain of high price points to consumers is more acutely felt these days. To be sure, prices are high at every point in the supply chain, from raw materials to reliable labor to taproom space, and breweries themselves are struggling to balance all of these factors while still providing quality product at a palatable cost. It is because of all these elements that it is all-too-refreshing to find a good and affordable beer—or any drink for that matter. That is where Lincolns Denver steps into the picture, offering all drinks for only $5 cash. 

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Firestone Walker Brewing | ParabaNoche

Oftentimes when the old school meets the new, a natural clash occurs. The old knows what they want and is set in their ways, while the new is non-traditional and experimenting with modern trends. When it comes to old school beer in the barrel-aged space, it doesn’t get much older than Firestone Walker Brewing Parabola, a legendary barrel aged Stout that has been in existence for over 15 years. On the newer side of the spectrum, there is WeldWerks Brewing Medianoche, a beer that helped launch — and is one of the most recognizable faces of — the Pastry Stout revolution. Firestone Walker (FW) and WeldWerks chose not to clash over these beers and instead combined forces to create a hybrid called ParabaNoche. Classical yet modern, this collaboration encapsulates the ethos of both beers while creating something wholly new.

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Colorado’s Primitive Beer & Cellar West Brewery Team Up for Special Sunday Release

The nature of a beer collaboration is working together with (hopefully somewhat) like-minded people to create a harmonious product that reflects the ethos of both breweries. For Primitive Beer, a brewery only making spontaneous barrel-aged sour beer, this process often involves guest blenders tasting through different barrels to determine “what works together and how they want to emphasize different ingredients,” explains Brandon Boldt, half of the duo running the brewery alongside his wife Lisa Boldt. Creating a collab is a journey that involves drinking and finding the right mix, and a frequent co-conspirator in this process is Zach Nichols of Cellar West Brewery. Together they have made many a beer, and today we will highlight one old and one new collaboration of theirs: SuperMoon SuperFriends and Meager Portmanteau (Blend 2) respectively available this Sunday.

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Incantation Brewing Opening New Taproom & Coffee Shop

The taproom model of brewery expansion has proved to be a popular means for breweries to open new locations while keeping profit margins higher through on-site sales. However, as craft beer sales have slowed and the public is not drinking beer like it used to, breweries must adapt to the changing landscape by offering patrons options beyond beer.

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Event Preview | 2024 Denver Rare Beer Tasting

Denver Rare Beer Tasting (DRBT) is back for its 15th edition, and this year it features a brand new location that is sure to excite all beer lovers. For the first time ever, Denver Rare Beer Tasting (DRBT) will be held at the combined space of Bierstadt Lagerhaus and Deep Roots Winery, an intimate environment allowing for the close interactions DRBT is well known for. 

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milieu fermentation company | Opening Weekend Preview

Opening a brewery is a journey full of challenging times and rewarding payoffs. For every newly installed and wrenched tapline spewing precious liquid across the countertop upon first test, there is the hard earned reward of that very first draft pour. Rob Bessett and Andrew Bergeron, co-owners of milieu fermentation company (pronounced mil-you) in Aurora, just outside of Denver, know all too well the difficult work that has gone into preparing their brewery for its opening weekend on May 4. Now that the date is set and the opening is just around the corner, PorchDrinking took some time to check out their renovated taproom and chat about what the future holds for milieu.

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Colorado Breweries Win Big at 2024 World Beer Cup Awards

Colorado breweries once again showed up in a big way at the 2024 World Beer Cup. Often referred to as the Olympics of Beer Competitions, the World Beer Cup features breweries from across the world vying for medals. This year’s competition featured 9,300 entries from 2,060 breweries across 50 countries entered into 110 categories, and Colorado’s contingent showed out in a MAJOR way taking home 21 medals from 19 breweries including 9 Gold medals.

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Amalgam Brewing | Present Time (Pilsner)

Making world-class lagers is no easy feat. The knowledge required to do so is not gained overnight, and no amount of luck can produce a clean and drinkable bottom-fermented beer without the requisite skill. A successful lager brewer must put in their time and learn from their mistakes on the way to creating something great. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a renowned mentor along the way.

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Horus Aged Ales | Built Different (CrystAle)

Continuing a trend of California brewers developing new Barleywine-based beer styles, we now visit SoCal where Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales has developed CrystAle. This 100% Crystal Malt riff on Barleywine began as a self challenge and morphed into something truly unique, combining elements of several styles into a new barrel aged option in Kyle’s repertoire. Built Different is the first CrystAle Kyle released, giving a peek into the philosophy and method behind developing a new beer style.

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Firestone Walker Brewing | Dividing Time (Munichwine)

Beer styles reflect the times in which they originate. Once upon a decade or so ago in craft beer, the idea of a pint glass filled with opaque orange juice-looking liquid whose taste most closely resembles a tropical smoothie would be preposterous. Alas, over the past 10+ years Hazy IPAs have come to dominate the craft beer landscape. Some styles are but a blip on the map – Brut IPAs sought a dry easy drinking alternative to the Hazy but had no staying power. This more easily palatable yet still juicy desire has led to the recent proliferation of Cold IPAs and modern West Coast IPAs utilizing lager yeast and modern hop varietals to reach that desired end. Despite this constant evolution, some beer styles seem timeless despite only recently being developed. Such a style is Munichwine developed by Brad Clark of Private Press Brewing. Having tweaked and perfected the style to his liking, Clark worked with Firestone Walker Brewing to brew a collaboration Munichwine at their facility and then age it in bourbon barrels, resulting in Dividing Time – an exclusive release for members of Firestone Walker’s beer club, the Brewmaster’s Collective.

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milieu fermentation company Announces Denver Area Opening

Amongst the rash of brewery closures throughout 2023, it is refreshing and reassuring to hear of a new brewery planning to open their doors in 2024. milieu fermentation company is giving us hope for the new year by announcing their plans to open in the former Ursula Brewing space in Aurora with a target date of late Spring. 

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