Beer Review - Elevation Beer Company

Let me begin by saying that the Elevation Beer Company of Poncha Springs, Colorado will soon be coming to Texas.  We were contacted by the "Sales Generalissimo" Alexander 'Xandy' Bustamante and asked if we would like to try a couple of beers from Elevation and review them for our readers.  He made this request full knowing that we are pretty brutal with some of our reviews and that I am, for lack of a better definition, a bit of a prick.  He agreed to send the beers knowing that we would be totally honest with our reviews.  Ballsy.

The Elevation Beer Company is an "artisan microbrewery specializing in brewing adventurous specialty and barrel-aged seasonal beers for the craft beer fanatic".  Yep, that would be us.  They opened their their 7,000 s.f. facility in 2012 with the intent to brew up to 7,000 barrels of beer.

Let's get right to the tasting, shall we?

The first beer that we tried was Fanboy Double IPA - 8.5% ABV, 70 IBU

This seasonal release features 5 hops (Galena, Falconers Flight, Simcoe, Citra and Centennial) and 5 malts (Two-Row, Munich Crystal, Carared and Carafoam) aged in American Oak barrels to create an intense, but balanced joy ride.  The copper colored brew pours with a slightly off white head that persists for a bit.  You can definitely smell the floral notes of the hops along with the bready yeast, oak and sugars.  The hops are the driving force of the flavor with tangerine, pine, citrus coming forward and a background of vanilla.  While the malts go a long way to creating a balanced brew, the flavors are muted.  Some of the comments by the Snobs were "...a superb IPA", "Wow, tangerine?  I love the tangerine!", "Smooth without a sharp, hoppy bite ...", "...fruity, malty, goooood."  We give this one a hearty thumbs up with the reminder to drink this one immediately as that it probably would  not improve with age.

Their second offering was Apis IV Belgian style Quadruppel - 8.7% ABV, 17 IBU

This beer provided quite a contrast to the Fanboy with sweetness and malts (Belgian Pale, Premium Pilsner, Special B, Caramunich, Munich) being the stars and the hops (Northern Brewer, German Tettnang) coming along for the ride.  Apis (the genus of the honeybee) is sweetened with caramelized honey which was noted by a few of the tasters to be a bit cloying, but delicious nonetheless.  The beer pours brown with hints of orange and red showing through and with a thick whitish head that leaves plenty of lacing.  You can definitely smell the honey, bread and dark fruits.  The flavor is both sweet and tart with plenty of the honey character coming through.  The bready malts and the earthy yeast marry with the subtle hops to give a very broad flavor signature.  Some of the comments from the snobs were "...honey sweet, more hops than the typical Belgian quad.", "..perfect amount of sweet...", "Very well done."  "....smooth with great balance."  I found the sweetness to linger a bit longer than I normally like and believe that a year or so of aging to allow the yeast to convert a bit of the sugar will improve the balance.  Again, very drinkable and recommended.

Elevation Beer Company
115 Pahlone Parkway
Poncha Springs, CO 81242
http://www.elevationbeerco.com/