On my trip to Denver I made the drive up to Boulder area to visit Avery and in the process stopped by Odd 13 first to try the beers that never get distributed to San Diego.

Odd 13

Odd 13 just celebrated three years and from my visit they seem to focus primarily on kettle sours and IPAs. They have a solid size tap room in an area six miles east of Boulder where the cell reception was terrible and the wi-fi unreliable. I started with some sours and moved my way on to a few IPAs.

Amacron kettle sour was nice with citrus notes and mild hop character. The Durazndor kettle sour with peaches and apricots was nice and mildly acidic with a good amount of fruit character. This was my favorite of the three sours so I was glad they had cans available. The Vincent Van Couch was another kettle sour with tons of fruit notes from the sour mash. The Buzzin Cuzzin coffee stout was nice and mellow with smooth coffee character that balanced nicely with mild chocolate.

For the IPAs, I finished with the Double Dry Hopped Super Fan. The beer had some nice citrus and herbal hoppy notes though the bitter finish didn’t jibe with the juicy style. The Hopperella was nice and smooth with notes of peach and vanilla. Both beers have the distinctive hazy unfiltered look and are tasty versions of the juicy style.

Top 2:
Durazndor peach sour
Hopperella hazy IPA

Avery

Avery is one of the larger breweries in the area, only surpassed by New Belgium for wide distribution of their beers. Though I’ve had most of their core beers before I wanted to visit the brewery directly to try them from the source. They have a massive two floor restaurant with plenty of seating and bar space for people to enjoy beers plus some outdoor seating as well. My husband enjoyed their always delicious brown ale that I used to buy quite regularly a few years back and their tasty stout. I stuck to their IPAs and finished with a brewery-exclusive sour.

Their single IPA is a perfect example of the classic West Coast style of IPA with tons of dankness and citrus notes and a dry finish. The Double IPA is fruity and sweet with notes of peach and a nice thick malt base that balances it out perfectly. The double dry hopped maharaja was fantastic to have fresh at the source finally. It is super smooth and does a great job hiding its 10% alcohol. I finished with the Terpshicore sour made with wine grapes and aged in wine barrels. The beer looks like a nice full-bodied red wine and is nice and jammy with fruity notes from the brett and a mild acidic finish. Though $6 a taster I savored every sip and would order more again for sure.

Avery has a wide variety of styles available from pilsner through to stouts and stronger IPAs, barley wines, and barrel aged beers including intense stouts and sours. It is hard to imagine someone not finding something to enjoy among the large tap list. They also had a handfull of tap room exclusives that make it worth the trip.