Weldwerks is quite the long drive, about an hour outside of Denver, and located in the middle of nowhere. You can find some of their beers around Denver in bottle shops and on tap but a lot of the beers don’t leave the brewery. The tap list was so insane that I could only go to that one brewery for the day because I wanted to try so many different beers. Though they are known for their hazy IPAs, and they are good I was most impressed by the milkshake IPA and the Berliner weisse beers with fruit. Their barrel aged imperial stouts were also quite excellent.
I started with DDH juicy bits, their flagship hazy IPA. It was creamy and mildly bitter with notes of tangerine and tropical fruit. It is a solid hazy and hits the right flavor notes for the style. Coalescence hazy IPA was similarly creamy but more explosive with hop aroma this time mostly tropical fruit including tons of papaya. I would have bought cans of this if they had been available. Evil Haze Factory was also super creamy with notes of vanilla, strawberry, guava, and pineapple. While it had some lingering sweetness, it was still my favorite of the hazy IPAs from the visit.
Double blackberry milkshake IPA was delicious with tons of berry flavor and related acidity. It was juicy and lightly sweet though I was surprised it was not hazy. Perhaps the hazy had been part of it originally and had settled out. In comparison, I much preferred the fruit explosion of the tropical milkshake IPA. It had a bright pink/purple color with a creamy body and explosive tropical fruit and berry notes. The stone fruit Berliner was juicy and tart with prominent stone fruit and a nice thick body similar to a smoothie almost. It reminded me nicely of the stone fruit gose from Aslin brewing. The strawberry rhubarb beer was like liquid pie. It was sweet with notes of baking spices and just the right amount of fruit.
The brownie batter stout was a big hit for my husband and other friends though a bit too sweet for me. It had nice prominent dark chocolate and dough but I don’t care so much for the heavy lactose flavor. There are plenty of delicious milk stout options for you here if you love a sweet stout. I prefer more of the barrel aged stuff so after this I had three versions of their meidanoche stout, a crazy powerful 15% barrel aged stout aged in rum barrels. Each was served as a 6 ounce pour.
The cool thing about the medianoche beers is they have a special glass just for the beer and so even if you get a six ounce pour, it is proper glass for the beer. I had three versions, a version made for their invitational beer festival with coffee and chocolate, a malibu version with coconut and vanilla, and a version aged 18 months in a single barrel without any adjuncts. They were all fantastic, not crazy boozy despite the high alcohol, and wonderfully balanced. They were some of the best barrel aged stouts I have had anywhere.
The invitational version was thick and fudgy with light barrel character and fairly hidden alcohol. I got some mild nutty coffee out of it as it warmed up. The malibu was slightly sweeter with notes of strawberry. The 18 month version was the most boozy of the bunch with strong rum character. As it warmed up the beer had some nice notes of toffee and tobacco.
Despite the crazy drive to get out to Greeley, I was glad I visited the brewery and would consider doing it again depending on the tap list that they have, which thankfully they update regularly on Untappd. If you go to their Untappd page you will see a list of beers available to drink on site and beers available to-go.
Top Beers:
Stone Fruit Berliner
Tropical Milkshake IPA
Invitational Single Barrel Medianoche
Paul McGuire
Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.
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