Football, beer and construction

Local brewers kick the NFL beehive

0

It’s official. Denver is going to the Super Bowl. And while most of the Centennial State is applauding our QB Peyton Manning’s accomplishments on the field, folks at Left Hand Brewing took a “pass” on the quarterback’s choice of beer, Bud Light. Ewwwww…..

 

After expressing a desire for a nice cold Bud Light during a post-game interview last week, Manning received a care package of sorts from the Longmont-based craft brewery: three cases of Left Hand beer, including Polestar Pilsner, Sawtooth Ale and Milk Stout Nitro.

A letter accompanying the package stated, “We think it’s a better call.” While security prevented the letter from being delivered, they promised to deliver the beer.

But seriously Mr. Manning, with a Colorado/ Washington matchup coming only months after pot legalization in both states, we’re going to have to change up the nature of the “Bud Bowl,” for this year. Get with the program.

In other beer- and football-related news, Boulder-based West Flanders Brewing found itself in hot hops with the National Football League after naming a new brew “Brett on the Broncos,” described as an “AFC Champion Style Ale.”

The NFL quickly shot the local brewery a cease and desist letter for “engaging in unauthorized promotional use of the NFL Marks (including inter alia, the AFC word mark and the Denver Broncos word mark and color combination).”

While the hopheads at West Flanders admitted they had no clue what “inter alia” means (and were somehow surprised that the NFL was offended by their use of color schemes and trademarked names), they expressed great respect for the Denver Broncos and the NFL’s legal department.

They have since changed the name of the beer to “Omaha! Omaha! Brett!” The beer’s new description? “After Formal Complaint Championship Game Ale.”

Here’s hoping no one in Nebraska gets pissed.

Something else not to get pissed about is the hooch coming out of Avery Brewing, something the world at large is about to get more of.

As previously reported in Boulder Weekly, Avery Brewing is mega-yummers. So much so that the brewery has been bursting at the buttons in its current “secret clubhouse” location in a weird back parking lot somewhere way down Arapahoe that is super-hard to find in the dark and has been planning a new mega-facility for some time.

This week, Avery broke ground on phase one of its new location at 4910 N. Nautilus Court in Gunbarrel.

Once Avery’s new Brew Star is fully operational, it will be more than 96,000 square feet, with seating for 249 and the capacity to push out around half a million barrels of beer annually. Brewery reps have said that that amount isn’t to expand so much as meet current demand. It’s just that yummers.

But the scope of the project is so large that it will be built in two phases. Avery estimates that the first, which will focus on the production facilities, will be completed in a year, and the second, which will build the front-of-house elements, will come some months after that. That should set things up nicely for the third phase, which everyone knows is “profit.”

Projected costs for the facility are more than $27 million. But perhaps since Avery is dropping so much cheddar on its new digs, they can get the construction company to throw in a spoiler.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com