300 literal yards to my backside was the historic, and thanks to South Park, super iconic venue of Casa Bonita. Anyone who moves to Denver waits for the moment to witness the high dives and diarrhea it provides, but today, my path was focused on a slightly newer establishment on it’s way to icon status on Colfax Ave. I was visiting Westfax Brewing Company just next door. Westfax has been brewing beer on this site for some time, and all without the added diarrhea effects of Casa Bonita.
This visit in particular was to talk about their brut IPA, “Just Brut It” after I’d spent a weekend destroying my liver at a giant lake in Nebraska (that lake will go unnamed, but those who know, fucking know. You know?). I spoke with the owner Anthony about the dry joy of the brut style, hops and his amazing-jack-of-all-trades role at Westfax. We even dug into the art renaissance that is going on this this neck of Denver’s Woods, but that is a story for another time.
The real meat to this story is all the learning I pulled from our talk about this new style of IPA. Everything else is just happenstance. That said, now we’ll get into the official interview.
The following is submitted to the BnL audience as Under Oath episode 003. It has been edited for clarity, but the accompanying audio is unadulterated.
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Sam: Thank you for joining us today, could you please state your name for the record?
Anthony: My name is Anthony Martuscello.
S: Thank you. And could you please state our current location?
A: We’re at WestFax Brewing Company.
S: What is your current position within the Company?
A: President, owner, founder… wearer of many hats.
S: AND A VERY NICE HAVE YOU HAVE ON TODAY, I MIGHT ADD. [laughs gregariously, yet unconfidently] SO the lawyer’s tell me WE USE the term “under oath,” we use that very loosely here, but do you pinky swear that you’ll tell something resembling a mildly truthful statement today?
A: Absolutely.
S: Alright, that’s good enough for me. You are now Under Oath on BnL, Anthony. Could you please state for the record what beer we are drinking today and briefly describe it?
A: Sure, we’re drinking our ‘Just Brut It’ IPA. A brut IPA, a newer style that has some base in California. And of came out of the San Francisco Area. It is a super light, super dry, super crisp, tropical fruits, little bit of grape and ripe apple. 7.1%, 43 IBUs, so really drinkable for being a 7% beer, and the biggest thing with this beer is we’re using an enzyme to chop out some of the those long chain sugars and allow the yeast continue to basically ferment this beer out to zero. There is no residual sugar, it’s dry. So that’s sort of where the name ‘burt’ comes from – dry brut champagne.
S: And it sounds like if you’re using an enzyme, you’re getting some brute force in there to really make that yeast get after it. Alright, you answered like four of my questions already, so good work there.
A: [chuckles politely]
S: So off the top of your head, do you know what kind of hops were used?
A: Yeah! So there was a little bit of galaxy, then primarily cashmere and pacifico. So a little bit different. The hop flavor, hop notes are going to be slightly more subtle because pacifica and cashmere can really be overpowered by those big oil hops like galaxy and city and mosaic. So we’ve toyed with them before in other beers and just gotten overpowered so we just wanted to make them really prevalent in this beer and them BE [smashes a glass on the floor for emphasis] the forefront. We went light on the galaxy on purpose to not overpower the cashmere and I think most of the flavor you get in this beer is cashmere. A little bit of pacifico – and little bit of the noble pacifico that comes out.
S: [pretending to be intelligent about hops] And I like that they’re hops you don’t really hear about that much either. Everyone’s using Citra… that’s the first one that comes to mind because that seems to be the popular one.
A: Yeah exactly [Sees that Sam is already floundering]
S: It’s fun to get some different nuances out of there. Are they, like, lower alpha hops too, or are they pretty strong? I’m not too familiar [grins sheepishly].
A: Yeah they’re not the 12, 13, 14, 15 percent alpha, I don’t know what they are off the top of my head. I do remember pacifico being in the 7 or 8 range, I think cashmere was about the same. But the biggest thing is the oil content and that’s where you get a lot of that flavor so it’s really what you’re looking at.
S: Alright, were any pastries involved, consumption or otherwise?
A: No pastries were harmed in the making of this beer.
S: Alright. And [laughs at own stupid joke] how many bruts does it contain to your knowledge?
A: [Contemplates for only a split second] Three.
S: Three? Alright this tastes like a three-brut beer. So what inspired the name?
A: [chuckles and eye just barely noticeably twitches] Naming beers can be very difficult, so I think between Brian [marketing] Alex our head brewer and myself, we had a text message going on for about two days and we thought of some really good ones that were just taken. Like, ‘Et Tu Brute’ and ‘I Am Brut’ but those are popular sayings from movies or history, so they were gone. We didn’t think Nike would come after us for this one.
S: Ok, so Nike was the inspiration more or less? [refuses to let Anthony answer] which is good because this next string of questions revolves around shoes and shoe companies. So, what kind of shoe would Just Brut It be? A sport, leisure or the kind that idiots collect and never wear?
A: [contemplates stoically] The kind that idiots collect and never wear.
S: It’s a collectable beer.
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S: Some of those shoes are ridiculous. Does it make a swoosh sound when you open the can instead of the usual pop?
A: Yes.
S: Awesome, I can’t wait to open the can.
A: And then there’s a crowd cheering in the background.
S: [laughs deeply and fully] Even better! So if Just Brut It were a show… a SHOE manufacturer, thanks autocorrect [thanks autocorrect] what would the conditions be like in its Calcuttian sweat shop?
A: I think every would be enjoying the beer while they’re producing the product.
S: That’s what I’m talking about.
A: It’s a party [stands up and moonwalks around the bar]
S: And you know, if it’s a sweatshop, it’s hot, this beer would cut right through all that. An excellent, excellent compliment [grasping at straws for jokes here].
S: If this beer were a shoe, what professional athlete would it be the signature shoe for?
A: Man, I wish I had some time to think about that. Maybe like a ping pong champion.
S: Ah yeah. Like Forrest Gump was for a while, right? [wheels are literally falling off the wagon right now]
S: Ok that covers the shoe portion, so the next set of questions are just kind of random fire. Are you ready?
A: I’m ready.
S: What song would this beer sing after getting shitfaced and signing up for karaoke?
A: Sweet Child O Mine.
S: I’ve actually done that one before, [inaccurate, actually sang Paradise City] it’s a good song. In my state it’s usually more like a howling cat [joke totally fails to land – bombing hard]. How dry of a personality is Just Brut It? David Duchovny in X-Files dry or Sheldon from that horrible show about nerds dry?
A: [Without missing a beat] David Duchovny by far.
S: That’s good, I prefer him anyways.
A: Yeah.
S: Alright, I was hungover when I wrote this question [accurate]: If a towel gets wets as it dries, what does this brut IPA do as it dries?
A: [brains start leaking out of ears]
S: Yeah we don’t need to answer that one for the record. If this IPA were to go to a house of pancakes type place, are we talking like a massive stack of pancakes, or is it going to be more conservative with its pancake stack?
A: No, its going big. It’s going big with fruit and chocolate and everything.
S: Alright you even covered my side question about fruit and chocolate. Get all the hits there.
A: Lots of maple syrup.
S: Since this a dry style of beer, if it were to get lost in the dessert, how long do you think it’ll make it? Would it make it out, and we’re talking a big one like the Sahara too…
A: It’d be out in 40 days just like Jesus.
S: [Giggles ridiculously] It’d just walk right out of there, brush off the shoulder, “ain’t no thang”.
S: Awesome, that pretty much covers it so thank you much for joining us and I think the answers [questions, dumbass] were satisfactorily answered.
