It wasn't too long ago that DMC Denver celebrated Opening Day, and now it is expanding into additional office space, with an expected completion in early 2017. We're excited to gain two new conference rooms in the process!
Knowing the new rooms will follow our current theme of being named after Colorado breweries (Great Divide and Renegade are our current conference rooms), DMC Denver saw this as an opportunity to try some local brews during the naming process.
What better way could there be to name the new conferance rooms than to pit 30 Colorado breweries against each other in three intense rounds of blind taste testing?
The Competition
In order for taste testing to be fair, we decided to compare only beers of one style, and in a near unanimous vote (sorry Tim) elected the IPA as our style of choice! We then picked representative beers from each brewery.
Here is the final list of breweries in contension to be imortalized as a DMC conference room, along with their respective competing IPAs:
| Brewery |
Competing IPA |
| Bootstrap |
Insane Rush IPA |
| Breckenridge |
Lucky U IPA & IPA |
| Upslope |
IPA |
| Denver Beer Co. |
Incredible Pedal |
| Black Shirt |
Frontman |
| Odd13 |
Codename: Superfan |
| Tommyknocker |
Blood Orange IPA |
| Station 26 |
Singlehop IPA |
| Melvin |
IPA |
| Elevation |
7437 |
| Left Hand |
Extrovert |
| Epic |
Escape |
| Eddyline |
Crank Yanker |
| Dry Dock |
Grapefruit Double IPA |
| Oscar Blues |
IPA |
| Ska |
Modus Hoperandi |
| Odell |
IPA |
| Wonderland |
Hoptail |
| Pikes Peak |
Elephant Rock |
| Bonfire |
Firestarter IPA |
| Steamworks |
3rd Eye |
| Odyssey |
IPA |
| Avery |
Maharaja |
| Finkel and Garf |
Imperial Rye IPA |
| Echo |
Mirror Image |
| Fort Collins Brewing |
Far Away |
| Crazy Mountain |
Hookiebobb IPA |
| Fate |
Moirai IPA |
| Copper Kettle |
IPA |
| Lone Tree |
Hoptree |
Round 1
We completed the first round of voting over five sessions, with six or seven beers competing in each.
To make sure all voting was based on taste with no other bias, beer was poured into numbered steins by a designated Pour Master and then covered and rearranged by an assistant prior to each tasting.
During each session, everyone cast votes for their three favorite beers of the group with ties determined by a head to head tiebreaker vote. The winners of each session are highlighted in green below.
| Session 1 |
| Bootstrap - Insane Rush IPA |
| Breckenridge - Lucky U IPA |
| Upslope - IPA |
| Denver Beer Co. - Incredible Pedal |
| Breckenridge - IPA |
| Black Shirt - Frontman |
| |
| Session 2 |
| Odd13 - Codename: Superfan |
| Tommyknocker - Blood Orange IPA |
| Station 26 - Singlehop IPA |
| Melvin - IPA |
| Elevation - 7437 |
| Left Hand - Extrovert |
| |
| Session 3 |
| Epic - Escape |
| Eddyline - Crankyanker |
| Dry Dock - Grapefruit Double IPA |
| Oscar Blues - IPA |
| Ska - Modus Hoperandi |
| Odell - IPA |
| |
| Session 4 |
| Wonderland - Hoptail |
| Pikes Peak - Elephant Rock |
| Bonfire - Firestarter IPA |
| Steamworks - 3rd Eye |
| Odyssey - IPA |
| Avery - Maharaja |
| |
| Session 5 |
| Finkel & Garf - Imperial Rye IPA |
| Echo - Mirror Image |
| Fort Collins Brewing - Far Away |
| Crazy Mountain - Hookiebobb IPA |
| Fate - Moirai IPA |
| Copper Kettle - IPA |
| Lone Tree - Hoptree |
The Contenders
Some strong contendors identifed in the first round were Frontman made by Black Shirt Brewering Co, which earned eight out of nine possible votes. Codename: Superfan made by Odd13 Brewing Inc., Singlehop IPA by Station 26 brewing copmany, and Odyssey Beerwerlk's IPA were also popular choices.
Denver had a blast tasting all of these delicious IPAs, and with the field now narrowed to 15 hoppy brews, we look forward to determining the winners in two more rounds of voting!
Stay tuned for rounds two and three when we will determine our new conference room names!
Check out more fun stuff going on at DMC here!