After the first-ever Colorado Brewer’s Cup, Durango’s Carver Brewing Co. came away with a best-in-class haul of two silver medals and a bronze for individual brews, which was good enough to grant it the title of Small Brewery of the Year.
In its inaugural year, The Colorado Brewers Cup occurred during the annual Colorado Craft Brewers Summit in Aurora. The fledgling competition took place over two days, judging beers for excellence in various categories, in addition to awarding two overall awards for brewers of the year in both the small and medium categories. To be eligible for judging, establishments must be guild members and operate in Colorado. This year, the Guild said it judged 650 submissions from 134 breweries in the state.
| Judging Category | Award | Beer Name | Beer Style |
| Pale Malty European Lagers | Silver | Lightner Creek Lager | German Leichtbier |
| Malty North American Beers | Silver | Old Oak Amber Ale | American Amber/Red Ale |
| Classic UK Amber & Brown Ales | Bronze | Colorado Trail Nut Brown Ale | English Brown Ale |
The strongest award pull in the small brewery category was enough to grant Carver Brewing Co. the honor of Small Brewery of the Year from the Colorado Brewer’s Cup. When asked what goes into earning a title like this, Head Brewer Patrick Jose and Assistant Brewer Cody Looman contributed to the answer together – consistency, persistence and attention to detail.
That steadfast focus paid dividends in two silvers and one bronze award for the brewery. One of the awards Carver Brewing picked up was a silver for its Lightner Creek Lager, a German Leichtbeir-style beer in the Pale Malty European Lagers category. When making the local classic, Carver Brewing touts the use of authentic quality ingredients, implementing the same malts that German brewers use in its light beers. Despite this, lighter beers like pale lagers have relatively fewer ingredients. Meaning that with fewer moving parts, getting the beer to perform as expected is a result of precision.
“Light lagers, by their nature, are a little more subtle and have a little more delicate flavors and things like that,” Jose said. “And so, any kind of flaw would be readily apparent.”
Part of that dedication to the craft is ingrained in Carver Brewing’s very history as one the first craft brewpubs in the state and a stalwart in the industry since 1988. As an establishment with such deep roots in the community and in the beer scene, the methods that go into creating an award-winning beer are part of an heirloom network of know-how and work ethic.
“We’re standing on the silk shoulders of so many brewers before us,” Looman said. “And you know, everything I’ve learned from the brewer that hired me here, and the other brewers that have come through here, brewers who work within the industry, it’s just kind of a big community and team effort to help each other make better beer.”
That community extends statewide. Being a leader in the industry for decades puts Carver Brewing in a position to contribute to others and help define the statewide expectations of some of these beverages.
“The beer recipes (that won) have been around longer than most other breweries were even a thing,” says co-owner Claire Carver. “So in some ways, these are perhaps even defining some of those (judging) categories.”
The other two medal winners, the Old Oak Amber ale and the Colorado Trail Nut Brown ale, are both brewed entirely with ingredients produced within Colorado. Which, as Carver says, is part of the brewery making ground on various sustainability efforts. Something she said the company wanted to move toward was supporting regenerative growing practices by purchasing regenerative malts.
“We just started coming out with a beer coming up here that’s brewed with all regenerative malt and local ingredients,” she said. “The San Luis Valley is where the malts come from, and the hops are coming from Montrose. So just making sure that our beer reflects a lot of the values of the business and making sure that we’re good stewards, drinking responsibly.”
Carver Brewing Co. was one of two breweries in the region to be honored in the competition. Telluride Brewing Co. earned a gold medal in the Malty North American Beer category for its American-style Brown Ale, Face Down Brown.
There are four Colorado Brewery Guild members in the Durango area including Carver Brewing. The other three are Animas Brewing Co., Steamworks Brewing Co. and Ska Brewing Co.
sjiron@durangoherald.com
