BeerTap TV

Last Saturday I had the great honor to work with Erik, Eli, Dusty and David of Beertap TV and help them shoot a couple episodes of their great beer-focused programs. After winning the Beerdrinker of the Year last February, Erik asked me if they could shoot a show from my basement. It took us almost an entire year to find a date that worked for all of us, but it finally came together. The gang van pooled up from Colorado Springs to Golden and set up their studio equipment in my downstairs pub & brewery. We filmed three programs – Beer Buzz, Taste Buds, and the first ever installment of a new program they are working on called “Manctuaries.”

Beertap TV is the largest beer-related Internet “television” site in the world. Their shows provide a great resource for beer lovers and interesting content from beer events around the country as well as some great interviews with beer legends. After about 45 minutes of setup, we started by filming an episode of Taste Buds. Taste Buds is a relatively short (10 minutes) weekly segment where the guys sample a specific beer and discuss its qualities. For this episode Erik, Dusty and I sampled Odell’s India Barley Wine. Odell touts it as being part Double IPA and part Barley Wine. It was an excellent strong ale that I found to lean more toward the DIPA side than BW. It was aggressively hopped and carbonated, was relatively light in color (amber), and had a light body with subdued malt notes. Definitely not an old school Barley Wine, but I’m sure the brewers at Odell were shooting for something more on the “India” side. It is a very creative new beer.

Next we filmed an episode of Beer Buzz featuring Erik, Eli and I. Beer Buzz is a longer segment that discusses beer related news and upcoming beer events. During Beer Buzz the guys usually drink a mix of different beers, and I was honored that Erik and Eli wanted to sample some of my home brewed offerings. During the course of the show we consumed my Oaked Golden Strong Ale – a dry hopped Belgian-style ale aged with light toasted oak, my Belgian Dubbel – a Rochefort 8-esque beer, a Strong Scotch Ale that I brewed for our New Year’s Eve party, and finally a Flemish-style Sour Brown Ale. I am proud to say Erik and Eli honestly enjoyed my creations. The main point of discussion for the show was the upcoming Beerdrinker of the Year National Finals. That competition will take place at the Wynkoop Brewery on Saturday, February 27^th at 2 pm. Of course Beertap TV will be there to cover the event.

The final program we shot was a new series the guys are working on called “Manctuaries.” Think MTV Cribs for beer lovers. This was fun because they followed me around my basement and we got to talk about the beer hall and brewery that my wife and I have been building over the past ten years. As usual Joycelyn was a trooper and had fun with the guys all day during the filming. Which isn’t too hard, because Erik, Eli, Dusty and David are all great guys and a complete hoot to be around. And I love what they are doing for the beer community with Beertap TV. If you’re ever bored, surf over to their site to keep up to date on what is going on in the beer world, or learn about a new beer you’ve maybe never tried. Register on their site and you will receive email notifications when they upload new content. The shows are always entertaining. http://beertaptv.com. Our Taste Buds segment will air Tuesday, and the Beer Buzz segment will air on Thursday.

(Note, after writing this entry, Erik informed me they had a mixer problem and the sound for the Beer Buzz and Taste Buds segments was unusable. Both had to be trashed. Total bummer! Anyway, Erik and David came back up and we re-taped the segments with different content than I described above. I’ll post the links when available.)