City Star Brewing, a small town craft brewery, had a big year of beer! Their New Years Eve beer release marks their 50th specialty beer of the year. Aegir (pronounced eye-ear) is a hazy IPA brewed with Norwegian Kveik yeast and double dry hopped with Citra and Galaxy hops. The Berthoud, Colorado brewery released 50 specialty beers in the year 2021 in addition to their mainstay beers available year round. City Star packaged 570 barrels (17,670 gallons) of beers throughout the year, brewed 100 gallons at a time on a humble 3.5 barrel brew system.
Inspiration for recipes comes from past experiences, staff ideas, culinary influence, industry trends, unique flavors, and available local ingredients. The majority of City Star’s grain is grown and malted right up the road at Root Shoot Malting. Specialties released were made with a variety of yeasts: German lager and American, Norwegian and Belgian ale yeasts. The 2021 beer line-up featured classic hops as well as new varieties, including Sabro, Cashmere, Talus, Strata, El Dorado. The most noteworthy hops though are the Centennial hops grown right in the City Star beer garden. They’re handpicked and added fresh to City Star’s Homegrown IPA each fall. City Star’s 2021 specialty beers incorporated many fruit adjuncts: pineapple, cherry, passionfruit, orange, strawberry, tangerine, peach, blackberry, soursop, raspberry, blueberry, watermelon, lime and mango. Vegetables made an appearance too: cucumber, carrot, pumpkin, sandia hot chili peppers, and even locally grown rhubarb.
These fifty specialty beers brewed at City Star Brewing throughout the year included a handful with philanthropic backgrounds. Honey Graham, brewed in memory of Jason Buehler, raised $1,200 for his family. Black is Beautiful blackberry stout was brewed to support equality and justice for people of color and raised $1,000 donated to NAACP. Harley’s Honey Wheat is brewed in honor of Harley’s Dream, a non profit who’s mission is to educate and spread awareness about puppy mills.
The greater Berthoud community has reinforced City Star’s expression, “You keep drinking it, we’ll keep brewing it”. Community support has enabled City Star to keep the fermenters full, and encouraged creativity in brewing. In 2022 City Star Brewing will continue creating craft beers you can hang your hat on.