Roaring Fork Beer Co., a seasonally inspired production brewery located in Carbondale, Colo., is celebrating its three-year anniversary with one week of celebrations ending with one huge birthday bash on April 1. The birthday bash is a ticketed event with two separate sessions to enjoy and will be held at the Roaring Fork Beer’s (RFBC) tasting room, located in one of Carbondale’s official creative zones on Dolores Way.
Chase Engel, RFBC’s brewmaster and CEO, who just received the award for “Best Beverage Artisan,” in the Roaring Fork Valley by Edible Aspen Magazine, seems to be on a roll.
“It has been another wild year,” said Engel. “We continued our growth in distribution to extend beyond the valley and switched our packaging to focus on 12-ounce cans, rather than bombers and our previous 16-ounce tallboys. We produced over 1,600 barrels of beer this last year, expanded our facility and bought two new fermenters for the brew house, a big deal for our small brewery.”
RFBC’s expansion has worked out nicely in terms of movement of product on the shelves and allowing the brewery to keep up with having six flagships in cans available year-round.
“My lead brewer, Dodge Cottle and I decided we wanted to have a little more fun in the brew house so we bought a 2-barrel fermenter that we will brew exclusive one off batches on for our membership clubs and for our tasting room,” said Engel. “We often talk about creative out of the box but not too ridiculous recipes we can think of to keep it lively, so be on the lookout for those this year. I would say we are most excited about what’s next though, in this next year expect to see a couple big changes that we think our followers will be excited for.”
RFBC will kick off the parties on March 26 with celebrations that will lead up to the Three Year Birthday Bash, a day that has always sold out in years past.
“One of my favorite events, is our annual Anniversary Beermaker’s Dinner at Town Restaurant,” said Marketing Director Aly Sanguily.
RFBC brewers, Engel and Cottle brew an anniversary beer every year which always gets unveiled at the dinner, this year it’s the Triple Flip IPA, a variation of their newest flagship IPA, Flip. For the dinner, Mark Fischer and his team create five courses to match the five beers that were hand selected for the night.
“The energy at the dinner is always high and it’s always a real treat to be in the company of the Town staff and the locals that attend to help us celebrate, we feel fortunate for the good relationships we have created and held in the valley, everything’s more fun with friends,” said Sanguily.
The “Anniversary Beermaker’s Dinner” is by reservation only by calling Town. Seats are limited and often sell out.
Look out for RFBC’s first ever “Moody Blues Sunday Brunch,” on March 26 which is a play off of Engel and Sanguily’s favorite tradition in their hometown of Austin Texas, the famous Austin blues brunches. Field 2 Fork Kitchen will co-host with RFBC at the tasting room for a bottomless brunch with a farm to table brunch buffet, beermosas, build your own bloody beer bar, coffee beers and live music. Reservations recommended by calling RFBC.
The grand finale of events will be RFBC’s Three Year Birthday Bash and will be held at the tasting room on Saturday April 1.
“This is a really great party for us, it’s honestly the best party we host all year,” said Sanguily. “We used to throw this thing as an open invitation with no tickets but after that became the most massive party we didn’t intend to throw, we decided to host two sessions with both being ticketed, and its sold out in years past.”
Ticket prices to each session are $35 and include a commemorative glass with unlimited pours, a take home anniversary beer bomber, exclusive tappings, barbeque and sides from Slow Groovin BBQ, beer infused birthday doughnuts from Sweet Coloradough, live music and a michelada bar for the early session. Tickets at www.roaringforkbeerco.com or in the RFBC tasting room.
This year’s Anniversary Ale, the Triple Flip IPA, will be bottled and distributed valley wide with a limited-edition label created by local artist, Sarah Uhl.
