Before I moved to Denver, I covered food and drink for local alt-weekly publications like the Houston Press and Houstonia. That was a great experience in that I learned a lot, developed my palate, and also got the opportunity to try lots of unique beers and other offerings.

But at a certain point, I was getting invited out to taste so many rare, incredibly heavy beers — 15 to 20% Barrel-Aged Imperial Stouts, Barleywines, and the like — and at some point, I realized that in my free time, I didn’t want to drink like that. 

So these days, when I want a beer, I usually prefer simpler styles. Beer that tastes like beer. There isn’t much I like better than an ice-cold pilsner on a patio on a hot day. I also like breweries that do unique things — with so many breweries in Denver and no way to get to all of them, I like to focus on breweries that do things you won’t really find anywhere else. There are a few options for these in Denver, such as the Czech Lagers at Cohesion or the Reinheitsgebot-compliant beers of Prost and Bierstadt Lagerhaus. I even make a trip up to Niwot once in a while for Fritz Family Brewers’ kolsch service or when they have a particularly high number of pilsners on tap.

But only one brewery does cask-conditioned ales in Denver, and that’s Hogshead Brewery on 29th St. near Tennyson. One of Hogshead’s flagship beers is the Gilpin Black Gold, their London Porter, and that’s my favorite of their offerings.

If you’ve never had a cask-conditioned ale, the simplest way to explain them is that they’re allowed to naturally ferment in the cask, rather than having CO2 added like in keg beer. This makes for a smoother, creamier beer — if you’ve ever had a nitro beer, the effect is similar but naturally achieved. Left Hand’s Milk Stout is probably the most well-known local nitro option; the nitro particularly works well with the kind of flavors you find in a stout.

Similarly to that, the cask conditioning works particularly well with the Gilpin and its flavor profile. Even though it’s a dark beer, it’s not particularly heavy, coming in at 5.6% ABV. That makes it easier to drink than most dark beer offerings, but it’s no less full of flavor. The Gilpin has a nose of chocolate and coffee that gives way to roasted flavors and nuttiness on a sip. The creaminess of the cask-ale texture really enhances those flavors and makes for a smooth drinking experience. I wouldn’t call it a dessert beer, as it’s not so sweet or heavy as that implies; maybe something like a good latte is closer to the effect. It’s a beer that’s flavorful without being heavy, smooth without being watery, and it stays tasty from start to finish. It’s a nice dark beer for a colder day, but not so heavy you can’t enjoy it in warm weather.

I spoke to Robert, the head brewer at Hogshead, and learned those flavors come from a recipe and ingredients that are very British. The traditional English porter uses more brown malt than the dark roasted black malt more common these days and more associated with the color, and the resulting beer gives more chocolate notes than roasted notes. It’s also a very authentic porter, as the mash bill — grains, yeast, and all — are all British. The beer’s name is appropriate enough for one of the brewery’s flagship offerings; the original head brewmaster developed the recipe while brewing out of his home on Gilpin Street right here in Denver.

Hogshead offers a number of other cask-conditioned ales — it may be the only place in town you can get a “proper pint of bitter” — and they also offer some keg beers, including lagers. I’ve found their whole program to be excellent; the rice lager they brewed in collaboration with Hop Alley is particularly outstanding. But after five years as a regular patron, the Gilpin Black Gold remains my favorite.

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