Just west of Denver, Colorado, in the Valverde neighborhood, there’s a quiet, unassuming strip mall that Wit’s End Brewing Company has brought to life since its opening in 2011. The modest, 2,100-square-foot building holds the now 7-barrel system that “owner, brewer, and dreamer” Scott Witsoe operates with his brewing team and comfortable tasting room that sports a collage of used grain bags on the walls.
Originally, though, Witsoe operated on a one-barrel system solo. Those decorative grain bags had yet to be used, and the walls were a bit more barren. Back then, Witsoe belonged to a newer generation of brewers making incredibly small batches, usually between one and three barrels at a time. Alongside Strange Craft Beer Company just a few blocks away, Wit’s End is often noted as one of the pioneers of Denver’s nano-brewing movement.
“I didn’t necessarily want to trail-blaze this nano movement,” Witsoe admits. “It was financially motivated—I could either open up with a one-barrel system or not open up a brewery. I figured worst case scenario I’d lose a lot of money, but I’d get back to corporate America and collect my paycheck and benefits again … But I don’t think this beard would do well in corporate Ameri-ca.”
Witsoe’s red, brown, and white striped beard might be worth the trip to the brewery alone. And then there are the beers.
“Starting out 31 gallons (117 liters) at a time gave me the confidence to experiment,” Witsoe says. Experiment he did. Especially in his early days he became well known for clever twists on common beer styles. Take, for example, Wilford, Witsoe’s take on a Belgian IPA and the first recipe created at the brewery. “This is an oatmeal approach to a Belgian IPA,” he says, “a style that can come off a bit harsh. So I put 10 percent flaked oats in the malt bill to give it silkiness in body. I add Cascade and Tettnang hops in late hoping and dry hopping to create a spicy, citrusy interplay that interacts nicely with Belgian yeast.”
Another one of Witsoe’s early experiments is the Jean-Claude Van Blonde, a beer that has gone on to be one of Wit’s End’s flagships. “It’s 6.5 percent alcohol so a bit stronger than your typical blonde ale. I wanted something that had the complexity that you’d get from the Belgian yeast that still maintained the crispness of a blonde ale.”
Jean-Claude Van Blonde is brewed with mostly Pilsner malts and a touch of oats. It’s aggressive-ly hopped with a late addition of Tettnang hops to create more bitterness than an average blonde ale might have. “The result is a spicy, fruity beer that is very approachable and dry, but still has an underlying deep complexity for those of us who like to dissect flavors as we swirl.”
Jean-Claude Van Blonde has taken home multiple awards, including a bronze World Beer Cup and a gold Great American Beer Festival award, both in the Belgian-Style Blonde Ale category.
Witsoe, who hails from Seattle, Washington, can’t deny his affinity for hops. His Green Man Ale is created with Northwest hops and walks the line between an IPA and a Red Ale. The black IPA, Super FL i.p.a., is hopped with Cascade and Columbus hops. Witsoe is also the proud crea-tor of a SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hops) series, the One Hit Wonder series, that includes the appropriately named Bang a Tettnang (Get It On), She Blinded Me With Simcoe, and Der Kommistar made with Southern Star hops from South Africa. “The concept seemed in line with my eighties pop-culture sensibilities,” jokes Witsoe, whose smaller system has allowed for end-less creativity from varied batch to batch.
That one barrel system is still put to good use as a pilot system. “Our passion to experiment and brew the beers we find inspiring remains paramount to our brewing philosophy,” Witsoe says. “I consider us artists who use science to create our brewed art. Every beer we produce has a story and a character. They are not just ‘beers’ to me; they represent our hopes and dreams. The beers are themselves characters in our world, anthropomorphic entities that we live with and celebrate their birth… I sound perhaps a little overly romantic. It is a business and must be run as such, but these notions are what inspire and motivate me.”
Witsoe plans to continue this beer love affair well into the future, growing with the changing beer industry. He’s thinking about investors and new beer styles, all with the goals of growing reasonably and maintaining the brewing integrity of Wit’s End. “Nothing would make me happi-er than seeing my daughters take over the brewery in 10 to 15 years,” he says. “We still have much to accomplish. The journey has been life changing, and in some ways I feel we are just get-ting started.”
About the Recipe
The Slam Dunkelweizen is a scaled-down version of one of Witsoe’s beer stories. “The first time I brewed this beer, my dad was in town helping me get the taproom open, and he actually brewed it with me,” Witsoe regales. “This was the first time he ever brewed with me, or brewed period, and was in fact the first time I ever let someone in the brew house. This alone holds great senti-mentality for me.”
Witsoe’s mom is from southern Bavaria, and fittingly Dunkelweizen has long been one of Wit-soe’s favorite styles. “The style, properly executed, is one I enjoy greatly to this day,” he says. “A local Denver homebrew store, Beer at Home on Broadway, has been selling this recipe kit for a couple years now. It holds a special place in my heart to see a Wit’s End beer kit at a store I frequented a lot back in the homebrewing days. This beer is an important note in my history, and a personal favorite going back to the first beers I fell in love with in Bavaria that arguably started my interest in good beer.”
PHOTO: BREWTOGRAPHY PROJECT