
CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO
Perched between Denver and Colorado Springs, Castle Rock sports freestanding tan stucco grain silo-marked
ROCKYARD BREWING & AMERICAN GRILL, visited August ’07. High ceilinged oval bar (with three TV’s), brown wood furnishings and glass-encased brew tanks supported small private left room and back patio.
Brewer Jim Stinson previously worked at Pueblo’s Shamrock, a former Irish pub initially used as horsestable with upstairs whorehouse, 30 miles south of Colorado Springs. Copious appetizers, seafood, steak, and big-portioned burgers saddled menu.
Pre-lunch libations included floral-spiced, corn-sugared, raspberry-tart, white peach-soured, watermelon-nectarine-sweet, pumpernickel-backed
Rock Berry Razz Ale, lemony candi-sugared banana-cloved Bavarian-styled
Wildcat White Ale and fizz-spiced grain-husked maize-dried
Double Eagle Ale.
Those discernible openers were bettered by woody-hopped stone-fruited tea-spiced Scotch-tinged pecan-slighted
Redhawk Ale, resonant hop-spiced alcohol-burnt wood-lacquered grapefruit-currant-embittered
Hopyard IPA and creamy black chocolate-fronted, espresso-vanilla-backed, cherry-pureed
Lightning Strike Stout.
Best bet: amazing dessert-like digestif,
Warning Sign Eisbock, with its initial cherry jubilee resolve, banana-chipped vanilla sweetness, bruised orange souring and Cognac-sherry whir.
Stay away from pungently lemon-soured, musky corn-oiled, vegetable-rotted, solvent-like, Miller Lite-compromised
Lynx Light Lager (my wife's fave, strangely)
.
www.rockyard.com