TRVE Brewing Scorn Pale

A clean and simple dry-hopped pale ale designed by Head Brewer Zach Coleman.

ALL GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters) Brewhouse efficiency: 72% OG: 1.050 FG: 1.012 IBUS: N/A ABV: 5.3%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

7.18 lb (3.25 kg) Troubadour Pevec malt

(substitute Pilsner malt if not available) 1.33 lb (603 g) Troubadour Serenade

(substitute Vienna malt if not available) 14.5 oz (411 g) Troubadour White Wheat 1.9 oz (54 g) Weyermann Acidulated

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.57 oz (16 g) Magnum [12% AA] at

first wort 1 oz (28 g) Mosaic [12% AA] at whirlpool 3 oz (85 g) Citra [11% AA] at dry hop 2 oz (57 g) Mosaic [12% AA] at dry hop

YEAST

White Labs WLP001 California Ale yeast or similar

DIRECTIONS

Mash at 152°F (66.6°C). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule. Knock out and ferment at 69°F (21°C) until it reaches 1.016 then raise to 74°F (23°C) until it reaches final gravity. Drop to 60°F (16°C) and drop or harvest yeast, then add dry hops and hold for 3 days at 60°F (16°C). Drop the dry hops and package by your preferred method.

WATER TREATMENT

We adjust for the water we get in Denver so this will change based on your base water profile. 0.12 oz (3.5 g) Chalk (CACO3) 0.04 oz (1.2 g) Gypsum (CASO4) overdo it. Have the confidence to strip out what isn’t necessary. Quality ingredients make for better beer. Keep improving the process. And work with other like-minded locals whenever possible to create beers with both character and a story.

That tightly edited expression reflects itself in the restrained acidity of the sour beers they produce at their production brewery, dubbed the “Acid Temple.” While some other contemporary sour-beer producers are content to push the limits of acidity to higher and higher levels of mouth-puckering sour, TRVE’S approach is imminently drinkable—sophisticated even.

Over the years, they’ve learned the ins and outs of their house mixed culture and have developed ways to massage the lactic acid bacteria into producing just the right level acidity by manipulating hopping rates and blending batches.

“I really love the fact that [more drinkers are] trying to steer away from ‘What’s your most sour’ and over toward ‘What do you have that has a little bit more balance or nuance to it?’”

When it comes to ingredients, TRVE has fully embraced the rise of local and regional craft maltsters and has begun sourcing significant amounts of their malt from outfits such as Troubadour Maltings in Fort Collins. The local angle not only makes for a selling point and story in the taproom but also supports a fellow local business and—most importantly—allows Head Brewer Zach Coleman to work with the malt house to create custom malts that deliver flavors he envisions.

“Zach has been really adamant about trying to change the producer-supplier chain as much as we can so that we don’t just work with these big guys who say, ‘Here’s our menu of shit. Just order what you need and figure it out,’” says Nunns.

“We can go to our maltster and be like, ‘We want this’ and they will be like, ‘Fuck yeah, we will make that for you.’ Or we can go to our farmer that we work with out on the Western Slope and say, ‘We would like to see these fruits,’ and he will be like, ‘That sounds great to me, too. I will get it in the ground next year for you guys.’ So that’s a big part of what we’re trying to do— change that relationship and support a lot of the businesses that are similarly sized to us just doing different stuff.”

In Defense of Turbid Beers

On the hot button issue of New England– style IPAS, Nunns takes a progressive stance that may be unpopular among some Colorado brewing peers.

“I’m baffled that you’re still seeing breweries in Colorado who are making

fun of hazy IPA,” says Nunns. “I am blown away by that. This is a legitimate style literally everywhere else [in the country]. It’s almost like the brewing industry here is so longstanding that we have these religious zealots about how breweries should act.”

For Nunns, these unfiltered and turbid IPAS may be something new, but there’s predecent for them within the world of beer, and they simply reflect the syncretic creativity of today’s craft brewers in creating new things from more traditional building blocks.

“I was in Boston for a festival, and Zach [Coleman], my head brewer, Kat [Wilkinson], my sales manager, and I were all sitting at a bar with three beers in front of us. My beer was Fresh IPA from Civil Society, who have since become really great friends of ours. Zach was drinking the same thing as me, and Kat’s beer looked identical, but was presented in a different glass. So I asked her what she had and she said, ‘Oh, I ordered a hefe.’ When I saw that the level of turbidity was the same in all three of those beers, I was like, ‘Why are we even having a discussion about this? Why is it okay for [hefeweizen] to have that level of haze but not this [IPA]? This is not even a discussion we should be having.’”

Nunns and Coleman have put their own spin on the hazy IPA they brew, pushing the beer to lower finishing gravity than is typical for the style while still delivering strong hops aromatics through late hopping and extensive dryhopping regimens. Despite their tough image, Nunns and Coleman could not be more approachable, just like the sessionable and simple beers they make and sell. While their visual style may seem to some to be overthe-top and dramatic, the beers themselves are a picture of restraint—honest, authentic, and rustic, with a defining personality that makes them TRVE.