The Craft Brewers Conference® (CBC) & Brew Expo of America®, is the largest craft beer expo in the nation. Held annually by the Brewers Association (BA) and its partners. It is tradition that the hosting guild brews a commemorative beer and style of their choosing as the official symposium beer. With this year’s conference being in Denver, CO, the Colorado Brewers Guild Conference Beer Committee, Colorado craft breweries and partners were chosen to create the 2019 Symposium Ale, a red brut IPA brewed at Sleeping Giant Brewing Company in Denver.

“Brut IPA is a new and exciting style, and the Conference Beer Committee thought it would be a great fit and a chance to experiment,” said Steve Kurowski of the Colorado Brewers Guild. “We brewed six test batches before settling on the recipe that will be available to the 14,000 people attending the conference from April 8-11.”

The grain bill was developed from a combination of malts including pilsner malts, two-row barley, flaked rice, and double-roasted crystal malts.

Focusing on this emerging style of Brut IPA’s­, the collaborators involved wanted to offer a more hop forward presentation, making the hops the super star of this beer. A total of four pounds of hops per barrel were used, blending Hopsteiner varieties X09326, X07270, and X06277 (formerly Denali).

To compliment the flavors of the hops, this red brut IPA was fermented with WLP820 Champagne Yeast from White Labs. The balanced ester profile, combined with the massive fruit and citrus character of the hops, provides a dynamic finished product.

The 2019 Symposium Ale (7% ABV) is a bright filtered rusted reddish-orange with a dark copper hue, a porcelain head and the appearance of a robust IPA. The finished product delivers a delightful amount of red berries, tangerine and ripe pineapple. It’s dry with a light alcohol heat balanced by light residual bitterness.

The 2019 Symposium Ale will be canned in 16-ounce cans at Sleeping Giant, the largest contract brewery in the western United States, and wrapped in a new tear-away plastic sleeve that will allow the can to enter the recycling stream without the worry of degrading the aluminum and create a keepsake to remember the drinking experience.

All CBC attendees will receive a can of the Symposium Ale in their welcome bag. Additional tastings will also be offered at Hopsteiner booth and beer tasting lounge #14039 starting at 11AM during exhibiting hours at the 2019 CBC.

“Hopsteiner is proud to have donated 100% of the hop ingredients found in the traditionally brewed Symposium Ale now for the second year,” said Marketing Specialist Darren Stankey. “We are absolutely thrilled that our experimental hops were chosen for such a stage and could not be more excited to share our varieties and the progress of our breeding program with the world at CBC 2019.”

Images and videos can be downloaded here. Credit may be given to the Colorado Brewers Guild.