The cold weather has finally arrived and it’s a great time of year to drink beer!  We have been working hard to keep up with our six year round beers but also love to have fun creating small batch recipes on the side, 10 gallons at a time. 

This week Wednesday we will roll out the first big beer in our Cabin Fever Series.  We plan to release one beer each month during winter that will be higher in alcohol and will warm your belly and soul!  First up, Cabin Fever Imperial Red Ale. With a deep red hue, this beer comes in at 8.5% ABV.  A pinch of cinnamon was added to the boil and the finished beer was aged on rum soaked oak.  Sweet and malty with a hint of warm spice!

Also stay tuned for an Imperial Stout and a Barleywine, details to come!  Like us on Facebook to follow the release dates for these beers, then come warm up after a long day of skiing or snowshoeing!

We got into backpacking just a few short years ago.  I can’t believe it took this long.  Always seemed intimidating to have all that gear on your back, far away from your car and the comforts of an actual campground.  Turns out this is one of our favorite things to do and the absolute way to completely experience the wild woods.  It’s daunting to pack for a trip like this…every ounce counts.  We have spent much time setting aside just a few clothing items to wear and rewear, only the amount of food we really need, and the tiniest of stoves, utensils, and safety gear.  We even have a single tool that serves as a fork, knife, and spoon.  But you better damn well believe we don’t count how many ounces are in a can or two of craft beer we jam in our packs at the last minute!  Back to the experience though.  No cars, no technology, no crowded campsites filled with tourists that don’t even appreciate nature.  Just you, the basic necessities to survive, gorgeous scenery to yourself, and all of your senses hightened and ready to take it all in.  The scent of pine, sound of a rushing river, sight of alpenglow on the mountain, taste of the best hot cup of coffee in the world on a cool crisp morning, and the feel of hiking boots on the earth. 

Part of experiencing the finer things in life is being able to really take them in using all of your senses.  We love to make beer inspired by the outdoors.  We also enjoy serving our beer in a wilderness-inspired tasting room.  Beetlekill pine makes up the long, comfortable bar and covers the walls.  The lights are dim and the decor is simple, including a few canvas pictures of nature we took.  There’s fun music, local restaurants that will deliver/food truck options, and even a view of the foothills from our patio.  We want you to be able to not just have a pint of beer, but to fully enjoy a pint of handcrafted Wild Woods beer in an inspired environment that brings our concept to life. 

 We have been open almost 6 weeks and have had a great time sharing our passion and craft with you all.  It’s been such a successful turnout along with positive feedback.  We’re excited to continue brewing much more craft beer, so come out and experience the Wild Woods for yourself!

Those of you who live in Colorado may know that Long’s Peak is the only 14,000+ foot mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park, and is known for it’s arduous hike to the top.  To hike this one requires a pre-dawn departure, a gain of over 5,000 vertical feet, and a total of near 15 miles.  The final 1.5 miles includes named, memorable sections that test your strength and endurance.  First is the “trough”-a steep/loose gully that is physically draining.  Then comes the “narrows”-a section of exposed ledge that requires mind over matter.  Lastly, the “homestretch”-a 300 foot steep pitch to the summit. 

Jake and I did this hike our first summer here.  Back then, I had no idea we would climb as many mountains as we have today (46!).  We also had no idea we would have the courage to follow our dreams of opening a brewery back then.  The process has definitely been a journey comparable to climbing any mountain, despite our nano size.  With the end reward of sharing our handcrafted beers always in mind, it takes extreme physical and emotional energy to get there, years of planning and brewing, and a few unforseen challenges along the way.  Our passion for craft beer has driven us to make our dreams a reality, along with a lot of support from family and friends.

Currently all 6 of our flagship beers have been brewed and are in various fermenting and conditioning states!  By the time we open there will be a few small batches of unique beers ready as well.  We are very close, tentatively the 3rd week of September.  The trough and narrows are behind us, we just have to get up the remainder of this steep homestrech so we can enjoy the summit and share Wild Woods beers with you all!

We had to brew a beer inspired by this common, yet uniquely scented pine tree.  Our Ponderosa Porter uses rye grain in addition to barley.  Rye gives it a dry and spicy edge, to replicate the actual tree bark.  Then we chose dark malted barley varieties classic to a porter, and condition this beer with organic vanilla beans and toasted oak chips.  The result is a spicy, oaky, and aromatic porter, which is actually quite sessionable.  This is my favorite Wild Woods beer.  It embodies Colorado and is the most creative interpretation of putting the wilderness into a beer (so far!).  We are looking forward to sharing this with you all in just a few short weeks!

On the tasting room side, the construction is complete so now it is decoration time.  We projected our logo image onto the wall and I traced it and am working on hand painting it.   A few pictures to hang, glassware to unpack, and soon we will have an awesome place to serve our beers to you all.    The most exciting recent update is of our interview today with The Daily Camera, Boulder’s local paper.   They reached out to us and featured Wild Woods as a new part of the booming craft beer industy.  Check it out! http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_21250311/boulder-based-trade-group-u-s-brewers-microbrews

We just returned from the 16th annual Colorado Brewers Rendezvous in Salida, hosted by the Colorado Brewers Guild.  We didn’t attend as brewers this year, but rather supporters of over 60 breweries from the state of Colorado that were pouring!  Held in a beautiful park near the river, this laid-back outdoor festival featured the brewers and staff pouring their own unique beer offerings.

We had fun mingling with fellow beer geeks and sampling generous pours.  Had to sport the new T-shirts with our logo of course!  We were able to talk to a few current and future brewers about their businesses and Wild Woods while there.  It is absolutely amazing to witness the comradery present in the craft beer community.  You wouldn’t think that people would be so willing to offer advice and help to any competition.  Our doors aren’t even open yet, but we have received advice from several operating local brewery owners who always seem eager to reach out.  Craft brewers together form such a tight knit community, if not family.  With over 2,000 craft breweries operating in the US right now, they still only account for about 6% of total beer sales!  This movement continues to grow though, with sales last year up by 13% in volume.  We are so excited to be a part of this community soon and already have many others to thank.  Cheers to that!

Photo (left to right) Charlie and Kristen Rilling, Jake and Erin Evans

In the meantime, we have received all needed licensing, the tasting room is nearing completion, and kegs/merch are on the way!

Camping and hiking is where my head can literally be above the clouds, and is clear to think of new beer recipe ideas.  I am able to open all my senses and think of ways to translate the total nature experience into beer.  There also isn’t a better reward after after hiking a hard mountain than a thirst quenching pint of craft beer.  So we might be able to climb a few more mountains and sleep a few more nights under the stars before the brewing begins and we open later this summer.  This will only help inspire even more creative beers.  Can’t wait to share them with you all!

As it is for the majority of boys, the dream to become an MLB player has to end eventually.  Instead, many of us go to college and get “real” jobs.  Engineering sounded like it could provide an interesting and stable career for me (I would soon find it was maybe a little too stable for my personality).  My first job took us to Pittsburgh for a couple years.  We lived in a fun part of town called the South Side.  There were a couple great tap houses with huge selections of beers of all different styles, most of which I knew nothing about at the time.  But I knew I liked them.  I liked trying all the different varieties and searching out anything that might be new on tap.  I was amazed at all the different flavors that were possible and began to learn a bit about the ingredients and styles.

Pittsburgh was fun, but our love for the outdoors drove us to Colorado.  I scored a job in Boulder.  Jackpot.  Not only an outdoor enthusiasts dream, but a craft beer mecca.  We would 9-to-5 it during the week, then head out hiking and camping on the weekends, hitting many of the 100-plus breweries in the state along the way.  We soon began home brewing.  Extract brewing on the stove top at first, but we needed more.  We wanted to learn more, brew more, and make great beers, and we ended up getting a Sabco Brew-Magic all-grain brewing system.  Many commercial breweries have used this system for recipe formulation and experimentation.  We settled on the first house we purchased mainly because it had a basement that we could convert into a dedicated home brewery.  And then we brewed.  A lot.  We started creating our own recipes early on and we would draw from our experiences in the outdoors as inspiration for the direction to take our beers.  We also continued to read about beer and brewing, and continued our “research” at many of the great breweries around, the number of which was growing.  Early in this process, and like many a homebrewer has before, we thought about what it would be like to make this our lives by opening our own brewery.  For several years we would casually talk about what we would want the brewery to be like and how awesome it would be to have that be our jobs until this last year when we started to get serious about it.

It’s taken a lot of work, even to start out very small, and there is plenty more to do over the coming weeks before we will be ready to open.  Planning.  Paperwork.  Regulations.  Construction.  Not exactly the batting practice and ground balls I imagined it would take to become a Brewer as a kid.  But at least as a brewer, there’s always good beer to be found at the end of the day.