Both as a business and in our personal lives, we try to be good people doing good things.
As we’ve grown, both as a business and as people, we’ve also noticed that being around other good people often helps us do even better things.
Which is why this month, we have to give a big shout out to Station 26, a brewery whose influence on the malthouse can’t really be understated. They’re a brewery that has actually led us to learn more, do more, and make some really amazing malt.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Hang on for a minute, while we pour a pint, settle into our armchairs, and tell a little brewery story.
Station 26 is a rockin’ craft brewery in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver. Built in what was once the Station 26 firehouse for the Denver Fire Department, Station 26 (the brewery, not the firehouse) boasts a gorgeous brick building with a huge patio, and a seemingly endless supply of beer. They’ve maintained the old fire lockers and fire poles (no, you can’t slide down them anymore) and the firehoses from the building are the backdrop of the tapwall.
It’s pretty amazing. And the old Station 26 firefighters aren’t even mad at losing their space. They got a new Station 26 in Stapleton. In fact, the patches adorning the Station 26 brewery are all from firefighters, police officers, and first responders who have had drinks in the taproom---an homage to what Station 26 was in the past, and what they currently are today. It’s an arrangement that worked out well for everyone: beer for the locals, new digs for the firefighters, and an inspiring craft malt relationship for us.
We met Station 26 six years ago. We were a brand-new malthouse looking to establish our reputation. They were an established brewery looking for a local malt purveyor. Specifically, they were looking for a custom malt for Juicy Banger, their popular IPA. (What? You’ve heard of it? Right. Because it’s AH-mazing!)
They wanted a light-colored base malt that didn’t have any “grassy” flavors.
We wanted to make them something awesome.
But awesome doesn’t come easy.
We spent six months trialing malts, tweaking the recipes, brewing them into beer, tweaking them some more, adjusting again, until finally, we hit it on the nose. The end result? Our Genie Pale, a two-time winner in the Craft Malt Cup, and one of our most popular base malts across the board with our customers.
This is what we mean by good people working with good people to end up with great things. Station 26 believes that beer, their beer at least, should take most of its ingredients from within Colorado’s state borders. By their own account, even though using local farms and ingredients can be more costly, it provides for a more personal experience with the beer. “One that feels like home.”
We couldn’t agree more.
They have a personal malting partner up the road, we have a killer beer producer down the road. We work hard to personalize their grain, they work hard to bring malt, specifically local malt, back to the front and center of the beer world. This is what the craft world should be: local businesses helping local businesses become bigger, better, badder versions of themselves…and producing some darn tasty beverages for the community in the process.
Speaking of Community, there’s a lot going on at Station 26. There’s no way we can cover it all here, so check them out on Insta, FB, or Twitter, for all the details, but here are our absolute favorite things about Station 26 that we just have to mention.
The Beer!
Oh, the beer. SO MUCH good beer. With both their hoppin’ taproom (pun definitely intended) and a significant distributing operation, Station 26 produces an impressive amount of beer. The best part (at least for us NoCo folks who don’t live right around the corner) is that you can snag Station 26 at locations all over the Front Range. The Can Finder app will show you exactly where you can get it, and social media keeps you up on all their releases. Their most recent release, Toward the Fray, is a collaboration with…no, not another local brewery, but with The Infamous Stringdusters, a Grammy Winning jamgrass band.
How unbelievably cool is that? Cool, but not surprising as Station 26 loves music. Specifically, bluegrass music, which brings us to our other favorite things about Station 26:
Bluegrass Brunch (and All the Other Events)
Every second Sunday of the month, Station 26 hosts a Bluegrass Brunch with live bluegrass music, food, and (of course) beer. There might be no better way to win the weekend than with flying fiddles, a twangy banjo, and a Tangerine Cream Ale.
But it’s not all just Bluegrass. Station 26 has a constant stream of events going on at the taproom, from food pairings, to trivia nights, to a vinyl club. Check out all the good times here.
Then give us a ring so we can join you!
As we dive into this month of March which, just for kicks, we’ve deemed “Malt Madness” (we’re totally into malt more than basketball) we’re waxing nostalgic about the beginnings of our malting adventure and feeling admittedly a little proud of how far we’ve come.
Honestly, we have Station 26 to thank for a big part of that. Without them, Genie Pale wouldn’t be Genie Pale and…who can imagine a Root Shoot without that flagship malt?
Today, Station 26, we raise our Emotional Support Beer to you (really, that’s what it’s called, a 5.5% ABV Brown Ale) for all the support, emotional and otherwise, that you’ve given us over the years.
Cheers!
—Root Shoot Malting
