Glowing House Red

If you were at Black Shirt Brewing Co for the VERY recent Glowing House beer garden concert, then you are familiar, no doubt, with a beer called Glowing House Red. If you missed the show, well...you also missed the beer and you might as well stop reading now! 

This beer was created in honor of the amazing Denver band Glowing House. We've all been big fans of the music these four people make since the day we first heard it. It's powerful, deliberate, passionate, delicate, sweet, and dark all at the same time. The band live is all of that and so much more. They truly leave it all on the stage. They can make the crowd sing, dance, smile, and swoon one minute and cry, reflect, and contemplate it all the next. They are dramatic and dynamic. To host this band not once but twice at the brewery has been a great honor. We couldn't be more grateful and thankful.

The beer itself is a mash-up of taste preferences of all four members of the band. Steve likes hop-forward ales and looks for pale ales or IPAs whenever he is out drinking. Jess, on the other hand, doesn't drink much beer and instead prefers a nice glass of whiskey...sometimes with an ice cube or two. Neil is the bartender of the group and is known to be the guy making mixed drinks for the party. Lastly, you have Michael - the self-confessed wine geek of the group. As you can see, creating something that they all would enjoy was a battle. I suppose, we appreciate and look for interesting challenges to push ourselves, and to push the idea of "red ales" to new levels.

After much brainstorming, research, and tasting trials, we settled on a Whiskey Barrel Aged Red Ale that we blended with vintage Merlot and Cab Franc that we had made six and seven years ago, respectively, while we still had dreams of opening a winery. The base beer was hop-driven and very whiskey-forward which lent itself to Steve and Jess's preference as well as a blend of different types of alcohol - something we felt that Neil would find interesting. After coming up with the idea of blending something else in, to make for a more dynamic and complex drink, the lightbulb flickered on. "Let's blend in our wine - it's sturdy enough to not get lost behind the whiskey character, and yet soft enough to still allow the beer to be tasted."

The result is a beer very much like the band - timeless, heartfelt, complex, intriguing, layered, nuanced, and...in the end...delightful! We hope you feel the same.