Dumbtown Brewing Company

Stupid Good Beers

Tag: Cinema

About Dreams of Dumbtown

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Dreams of Dumbtown began as a proof of concept baby step.

The 75 posts that follow began as nothing more than a list of potential beer names. I was simply trying to come up with 64 different beer styles and names that in some way conveyed a portion of my Evans School Dream.

I had a very modest objective. I wanted to come up with 64 beer names I could scribble onto a twelve month calendar so that I could begin to put the goal of one tapping every week, plus a major tapping event once a month (52+12=64) onto paper.

I was not far into my beer list before the exercise morphed into something else and I started jokingly referring to my beer list as my Epic beer poem. Well Dreams of Dumbtown isn’t the Beer List* anymore and it clearly isn’t an epic poem.

Dreams of Dumbtown is just a mash up of:

  • My Evans School Notions;
  • A brewery-restaurant concept and business plan;
  • An homage to some of my favorite brewers, beers, movies, etc.;
  • A litany of puns and overworked religious, academic and war metaphors;
  • A civic rant;
  • And, something I probably shouldn’t have put online because…

Why Dumbtown Brewing Company?

The question obtrudes, why Dumbtown?

The answer is myriad reasons and here are a few:

  • First, the Dumbtown name is self-deprecating.
  • Second, the brewery will be in a school and the name is intended to be ironic because I envision that brewery making the dissemination of knowledge one of its particular civic missions.
  • Third, Dumbtown’s labor economics are stupid. The idiotic brew house is a third the size it should be and it has three times as many fermenters as it should. I did not intend for that to read like a Bilbo farewell but it does.
  • Fourth, the concept is excessively complicated. It’s like I’ve sought to maximize the opportunities for failure.
  • Fifth, I’m just getting starting with the dumb reasons.

A few bits of background

  • The Evans School is named after John Evans. John Evans was the 2nd Governor of the Colorado Territory, he help found Northwestern University and also helped found Denver Seminary which became the University of Denver. John Evans was without doubt a great man but like all of us he had flaws and he made mistakes.
  • I’m not a brewer but I do work in the beer industry. Consequently, I get to attend industry events where I can interrupt Jim Koch with stupid questions and watch Tony McGee drop a beat poem on unsuspecting business seminar attendees or quote Quentin Tarantino while sitting next to MillerCoors’ CEO Tom Long.

Please Use the Comments Section to

  • Ask Il Dorke questions
  • Give Il Dorke free ignorance reductions
  • Tell Il Dorke you’d like to apply to brew a Dumbtown beer. If so please:
    1) Describe the beer
    2) Provide some details of your brewing experience
    3) estimate the grain bill for 5 bbls
    4) Approximate fermentation & conditioning time
    5) Suggest a tapping date
    6) Suggest food pairings
    7) If isn’t inherent in the beer name, or if you’ve got a killer show, suggest a tapping night theme.
    8) And to talk amongst yourselves.

1. Sour Not The Guy

NotTheGuy

Among my dysfunctions is a propensity to start with disclosures and end with tangential explanations. Seriously, I can’t even articulate my idea, let alone brew a beer. There is a litany of reasons why I am so not the guy to do this thing. I’m not a chef, an architect, a restaurateur, a theater manager, a painter, an interior designer, a sculptor, or a musician. I was born sans aesthetic and with anti-rhythm. The good news is I have a weak palate and a poor sense of smell. So I’ve got that going for me.

  • Style: Confessional Sour
  • Liner note: The beers are ordered for the purpose of my story. I am virtually certain the order in which the beers will need to be brewed is substantially different. And for God’s saké, there is absolutely no way Dumbtown’s going to try and lead off with a sour. Damn, that would be idiotic.
  • Beer tangent: Soooooo… who does one put in charge of a perpetuity?

5. I Got This

Musashi_ts_pic

Are you so good Dumbtown could be one and done? Could you be the one to give Dumbtown’s debt the Miyamoto Musashi treatment. Do you have a beer so good it can roll with Fat Tire? Are you ready to throw down with The Golden Monkey? Can you make Dumbtown’s first tank as legendary as Boulevard’s 7th? Or either Pliny?

Well then, you are the home brewer Dumbtown requires. If you are this Hop Savant please write the first verse of Dumbtown’s pub song:

Write your beer down, then come it brew it downtown.

So, Dumbtown only needs 63 more beers for its halls…

Make the first pony in Dumbtown’s stable a pure thoroughbred. Think Eric Young’s leadoff home run at the Rockies first home game. Crush one out of the park, then go pro, inspire others and don’t forget to come back to Dumbtown every once and a while to brew again.

  • Style: WIDE OPEN
  • Liner note: It appears Crooked Stave pre-emptively stole the phrase Hop Savant from Dumbtown, as is their chronological right, but it was kind of uncool. Yeast Yoda would have been more appropriate. I am virtually certain the phrase “Hop Savant” first entered my head as a Crooked Stave beer was entering my mouth.
  • Beer tangent: Clarence would never order such poorly mixed metaphors.

6. The People’s Common

A beer of the people, by the people and for the people.

People's Fair

This is one of many beers that pay tribute to the Evans School’s central location and its historical purpose. This brew also speaks to the idea that Dumbtown will be an active participant in the neighborhood. The Capitol Hill’s People’s Fair is a major annual event. Dumbtown wants to be a part of it.

Each year Dumbtown wants to join in this celebration of community.

  • Style: Common
  • Liner note: Capitol Hills People’s Fair ≈200,000 attendees.
  • Beer tangent: Seriously, these surge capacity issues are helles serious business!

7. I Need A Beeracle

City and Country Building in Denver Colorado Christmas

Dumbtown is a problem filled idea. You want to compete in Denver’s craft beer market? Gee, that’s smart. How about quality control? It’s like I’ve constructed Dumbtown to maximize the opportunities for failure.

Hence, I Need a Beeracle.

This will be Dumbtown’s Parade of Lights Beer.

8. Clarence’s Wings

Clarences Wings

Yes, it is a reference to It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s the first of many. Confessed Capra zealot you got here. What’s the better movie Citizen Kane or It’s a Wonderful life? Personally, I’ll take the later. I’ll take all the George Baileys I can get.

Maybe one day Dumbtown can do spirits and serve the kinds of drinks Clarence tried to order but until then Dumbtown is just looking for a great beer that’s a little nuts.

  • Style: Coconut Porter
  • Liner note: Dumbtown has to give back (i.e., contribute to society) from day one. Dumbtown has to put its coin in the fountain everyday it’s open. Here, I would like to keep it simple – at least at first. I’d like to know that every time a beer sells Denver Public Schools get a dime. My wife says, “that should rhyme”, AS IF to imply I could do better. At this stage, my reaction is, perhaps, AND debt done dime doubles.
    How does that dime or it’s double get delivered? I do not know. I’d like to hear what the 64 Ronin think about this.
  • Beer tangent: Bury the business plan backwards

9. Zuzu’s Petals

Zuzu's PedalsMy process of beer names involved grabbing the BA beer styles guidelines and shooting for 64 different names and styles. The ease with which excess beer names flowed out was reassuring. It told me this thing I imagined could indeed exist in perpetuity.

  • Style: Herb and Spice
  • Liner note: There has been no shortage of randomness and serendipity during my Evans School obsession. This beer could have just have easily been named broken stair knob. That’s what the beer tangents thing is about. In my mind my craft journey, my (X-(beeri)™ -n-senes)™, and my notions of what the Evans School could be, are still very much a tangled mess.
  • Beer tangent: Beer is the catalyst that ignites the process. It’s the lever to crack open the doors. But beer is just one piece of Il Dorke’s Evans School puzzle.

10. A Cop and a Taxi Driver

CopAndTaxiDriver

I loves me my Belgians. If I put together a list of 64 beers you can bet a Belgian quad is going to be on it. This isn’t a Dreams of Dumbtown thing per se but it does have implications for the executions of Dumbtown.

On the night we tap this one we’re going to have to do two things. First, we are going to have a serious conversation about responsible drinking. And second, we are going to have a silly conversation about whether or not there exists a link between Sesame Street and It’s Wonderful Life.

  • Style: Belgian Quadrupel
  • Liner note: I often choose very bad words to describe my thoughts and ideas.
  • Arch-tangent: Oh look, it’s a little baby Duomo with a Mussolini balcony for Il Dorke.